The Trouble With Guys
by EGB Fan
Summary: A smooth talking teenage boy has just moved in across the street from the Venkmans, but there may be more to him than meets the eye. Could it be anything to do with the recently arrived incubus?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **_Ghostbusters _(c) Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Columbia Pictures

_Extreme Ghostbusters: _**The Trouble With Guys**

Part 1

"Can _you _talk to her for me?"

Janine Spengler exhaled heavily. So that was what it had all been building up to - the wide eyes, the wringing hands, the slight edge in his voice that _almost_ sounded like he was about to burst into tears… And they weren't words anyone wanted to hear from a friend - not even a friend one professed not to like very much. "Talk to her" meant so much more than just _talk to her_. It meant _convince her I'm right without letting on that I had anything to do with it_.

"Why can't Dana talk to her?"

Peter Venkman scowled. "She doesn't listen to Dana. All those two ever seem to do these days is bicker - it'd only make things worse."

"So _you_ talk to her."

"Oh no, I couldn't do that."

"Why not?"

"I would appear to be interfering in her life," said Peter, "and I don't want her to stop thinking I'm wonderful."

"You _are_ interfering in her life," Janine pointed out. "And she'll figure out that you're not wonderful one of these days, you know."

"Stop digressing. Are you saying no?"

"I _am_ saying no."

"It can count as work - I'll pay you overtime."

"No."

"Why?"

"It's none of my business."

Peter's charming smile dropped. "She's thirteen," he said. "And if she gets herself pregnant, I'm holding _you_ personally responsible."

"Dr. Venkman," Janine said patiently. "She isn't stupid enough to get pregnant. How old is this kid anyway?"

"I don't know… fifteen, maybe sixteen…"

"Oh, well, does he know Jessica's only thirteen? Because she looks older, you know. She looks at least fourteen. At _least_."

"You," said Peter, "are not helping."

"What's his name?"

"Cameron."

"Oh." Janine suddenly took on a faraway look. "I knew a Cameron once. He had the most charming smile I've ever seen before or since."

"You're _really _not helping."

"And I don't intend to start now," Janine said firmly. "Your daughter is not my responsibility, and I am not getting involved."

She wouldn't be swayed - Peter could see that. He gave up and made his way towards the staircase, rethinking his plan as he walked. He had really been counting on Janine saying yes, but he supposed there was no reason why it _had_ to be Janine. Come to think of it, there weren't too many criteria that had to be fulfilled here. She just had to be woman (the whole "trouble with guys" speech would have so much more credibility coming from a woman, or else Oscar's gay drummer friend Danny, but all four members of their band Mood Slime were in Memphis just then), whom Jessica liked and trusted and might think twice about getting aggressive with.

"Kylie! Just the person I wanted to see."

"Oh yes?" Kylie Griffin, who was currently studying a book about reanimated corpses and their general use in demonology, looked up warily. "Why is that?"

"I got a problem." He sat down heavily next to her, quietly wishing that Kylie was alone in the room. She almost was, but for her colleague Roland Jackson, who probably shouldn't listen to this for certain reasons. "See, there's this woman moved in across my street with her son Cameron."

"Cameron?" echoed Kylie, a smile playing on the corners of her mouth. "I knew a Cameron once. He had all this untamed hair that you just wanted to grab hold of and run your fingers through it. But anyway," she snapped out of it. "What's the problem?"

"The problem," said Peter, "is that Cameron is at least fifteen, he and Jessica seem to 'accidentally' bump into each other about eight times a day and she obviously has the hots for him."

"Oh, for the love of Pete," said Kylie, putting her book down emphatically. "What is it with dads? Why can't they trust their daughters? Why do they assume that every boy she meets will attempt to get in her pants and she won't have the gumption to say no?"

Peter was momentarily stumped.

"Excuse me," Roland cut in. "This Cameron is two years older than Jessica, right?"

"Thereabouts." _Here it comes…_

"I seem to remember that your son started pestering my little sister for a date when she was fourteen and he was sixteen."

"That was different," said Peter.

"How?"

"By one whole year."

"Oh," said Roland. "So it'll be ok for Jess to start seeing this person next year, will it?"

"Absolutely," Peter said unconvincingly.

Roland threw him a challenging look.

"Well," said Peter, "to be honest, that may not be an issue. Cameron and his mom seem to move around a lot. Apparently they've lived in ten different states."

"Now that," said Kylie, "is weird. It's just the two of them, is it?"

"Yeah. I never thought Jess would go for a momma's boy like him."

"Maybe his mom thought he wouldn't go for a daddy's girl like her. But anyway, they've moved into your street? Your street with all those big flash four-bed terraces?"

"Yes."

"Huh. I like the cheek of that. They ought to swap with us." Kylie was living with a husband, two small daughters (currently with their aunt Beth) and a rapidly ageing cat in a two-bedroom apartment. "But anyway, I'm surprised at you, Peter. I thought you understood teenagers. If you tell Jess she can't see this kid, she's going to be sneaking out at night, climbing a ladder up to his room, snorting his coke and getting herself pregnant with his babies."

"I know," said Peter. "That's why I need you to do it for me."

"Well I'm sorry," said Kylie, not sounding sorry at all, and waving her book in Peter's face; "but I'm busy here. I'm not just reading this for the sheer fun of it. I'm doing some research on incubuses. Or incubi," she added. "No one seems quite sure."

"Why?" asked Peter. "Is there one around?"

"Almost certainly. We've had an unconscious date rape with no trace of drugs and some trace of PK activity. That sure sounds like an incubus to me."

"So how come you're reading about reanimated corpses?"

Kylie looked scandalised. "_You're_ supposed to be a Ghostbuster. Listen. The incubus is a demon with no physical body, so he has to use someone else's to do his thing. Some legends say he just uses the one cadaver to walk around in; others say he manipulates the flesh of a corpse or corpses into a human form, and most of _those_ legends agree that he can appear in the guise of someone his victim knows and wants to get jiggy with."

"Using the flesh of a corpse? That's disgusting," remarked Peter.

"I know," said Kylie, "and it reminds me - you'll want to have a PKE meter at home tonight, because if you decide to try your luck with Dana, she'll need to know it's really you and not the incubus. Not that she can do much if it _is_ the incubus. He'll have a hypnotic effect on her, and he has the power to send everyone else in the household to sleep, including the woman's husband even if he's right there in the bed with them."

Peter stared at her in silence for a few moments. Then he said, "So aren't you going to help me with Jess, then?"

"No," said Kylie. "Jessica's smart. If he's bad news, she'll figure it out for herself."

x x x

"Ooh, there's Cameron! I'll take you too meet him."

Charlene Zeddemore wasn't surprised. It wasn't the first time Jessica had gone stupid over a man. It _was_ the first time she had gone stupid over a boy, though - the last one wasn't a boy by any means. However, while not surprised, Charlene _was_ disappointed. For one thing, she thought Jessica had more self-respect than she was exhibiting right now. And for another, they were supposed to be spending their Saturday afternoon listening to music and bitching about their friends or whatever it was teenagers did. She hadn't expected to have her arm pulled almost out of its socket for the sake of meeting a guy who lived across the street.

"Jess, hi!" Cameron waved them over. Then he turned his blinding, melting, charming, disarming, beguiling, devastating smile on Charlene and added, "Hey there."

"Hey there," echoed Charlene, already deciding to go a little easier on Jessica than she originally planned. She could see it now, she really could, which was odd because she wasn't really interested in boys yet. At least, she didn't think she was. Jessica seemed to be sailing through puberty: noticing the first signs of breast growth at ten, encountering the onset of menstruation at eleven, being wooed by a smooth-talking vampire at twelve, having blazing rows with her mother all the freaking time… Charlene, however, was in no particular rush, and she hadn't really seen boys as anything other than friends before. But now…

Cameron wasn't handsome. He wasn't ugly by any means, but he definitely wasn't handsome. He had nice dark eyes, and that smile that was probably bordering on illegal, but he wasn't handsome. He was _something_, but it wasn't handsome.

"Hi." Jessica, for all that she was hopelessly in love, didn't seem to be having too much trouble talking to him. She was hardly even blushing. She had confidence by the bucketful, that girl. "You remember I promised to introduce you to a few of my friends? Well, this is Charlene. She's one of my friends."

"Charlene - nice name," Cameron said casually, proffering his right hand. "Hi. I'm Cameron."

"Yeah, I know." His handshake felt kind of nice, actually.

"Cameron doesn't really know anyone yet," Jessica went on. "He just moved here at the beginning of the week from Utah."

"At the beginning of the week from Utah?" Charlene raised her eyebrows. "What about school?"

"Yeah, well - you know that song 'Too Cool for School'?" Cameron grinned endearingly. "But seriously, Mom usually moves us on during the summer, or at least spring break or something, but not this time. I've missed out on like two weeks of the ninth grade, which may have caused irreparable damage - only time will tell - but I'm starting school here next week. My mother actually wanted to home-school me, but I kind of insisted."

Charismatic. That was what he was. And charming. And cute. All of those things. Just not handsome. But, God, who wanted handsome? Handsome guys too often knew they were handsome, and so didn't bother trying to be anything else. They were so rarely charismatic, charming or cute, and never all three.

The cuteness, the charisma and the charm apparently didn't run in the family. Jessica had already figured this out, and Charlene suspected as much when a nervous looking woman appeared in the doorway and said unpleasantly, "Cameron! Get your ass back in here!"

"All right, Mom, in a second," Cameron called over his shoulder.

"Are you photosensitive or something?" Jessica asked bluntly. "How come she never lets you out to talk to me for more than about a minute?"

"Aw, she's probably just afraid you'll deflower me or something," said Cameron, which slightly shocked Charlene. She hardly thought it was appropriate for him to flirt openly with a thirteen year old. "Your dad's the same, you know - every time he sees me I get this touch-my-daughter-if-you-dare look."

"Ugh." Jessica scowled. "I'm gonna kill him."

"He only wants to keep you wrapped in cotton wool because he loves you, Jess."

"Cameron!" Then, seconds later, "Jessica!" came from the other side of the street.

"You'd better go," said Cameron. "I've heard what you and your mom can be like."

Jessica cringed just ever so slightly. "Really?"

"Go on. I'll see you around."

He headed for his front door, and Jessica for hers. Charlene's interest in him seemed to deplete as soon as she turned her back and fell into step beside Jessica. Cameron was just a little too old for either of them anyway. Speaking of which…

"Jess, how old does he think you are?"

"I don't know."

"Ah-ha. And how old is _he_?"

"I'm almost sure he's fifteen."

"He looks more like sixteen to me."

"Oh, who are you - Jiminy Cricket?" retorted Jessica. "My last boyfriend was two hundred and twenty-five, if you recall."

"Yeah, and talk about bad news," said Charlene.

"Well, he _was_ a vampire."

"And what's Cameron? Some kind of fugitive? He just travelled several thousand miles in the middle of the school year, and his mother doesn't even like him standing in his own front yard - it's almost like she's hiding him from something."

"Yeah, well." Jessica gave a small shrug. "She's just weird."

x x x

Eduardo Rivera had been romantically fused to Kylie for some time, and he had learnt early in their relationship that she hated him to be possessive. That was why he couldn't tell her exactly what he was feeling right now, which was, frankly, torn. He was feeling torn because he didn't like the sound of a demon that could "evoke sexual desires in a woman that only the demon itself could satisfy". Part of him wanted to be at Kylie's side twenty-four hours a day so that he could keep an eye on her (he trusted her not to cheat on him intentionally, but this was different), while part of him was relieved that she had been advised by their boss not to come out on this call (oh, how she hated _that _one).

The call was for missing cadavers, interestingly enough. Unfortunately they were about a week too late. Everyone at the morgue had managed to keep the disturbing incident away from the press, and only decided to call in the Ghostbusters when the police and two completely separate private investigators (hired by bereaved families who believed that their loved ones' bodies were being used for God knew what) failed to turn up even the slightest clue as to what had happened.

"Incubus?" echoed Rachel the mortician. She was being briefed by Egon Spengler as to what he thought had happened, while Garrett Miller and Eduardo hunted around for some shred of a lead. "What's that?"

"Um…" Egon seemed to hesitate.

"Basically it's a sex demon," Garrett jumped in. "The male equivalent of a succubus, only less malevolent in that its intentions are thoughtless and selfish rather than homicidal. In other words, it only wants to get its end away."

"Just like a lot of guys," Rachel said dryly.

"Well," said Egon, "the demon has a draining effect on its victim, and intercourse is potentially fatal. But the first time usually doesn't kill you, and as a general rule there isn't a second time because it likes to move between women as quickly as possible."

"Just like a lot of guys," Rachel said again.

"Egon," said Eduardo. "There's nothing here but a bunch of corpses. Can we go now? This place is giving me the creeps."

"Excuse me," said Rachel. "Is there any danger this 'incubus' might come back?"

"Unlikely," said Egon. "It would have used the cadavers to construct a human body in which to… well, you know. It shouldn't need any more, unless something happens to it."

"What, like if it gets hit by a truck or something?"

"Well. Yes."

x x x

"Please help me," Dana hissed furtively into the phone. "She listens to you. Oh, honey, there you are!" She feigned surprise as Jessica wandered in through the open front door, having just waved off Charlene and her mother. "Would you like to talk to Oscar?"

"Sure," said Jessica, and shrugged, trying to exude an air of indifference. For some reason, unknown even to herself, she wanted to hide just how much she was missing her brother. She took the phone from Dana and said casually, "Hi."

"Hey." Oscar's voice seemed to tug on her heart. Surprisingly so. It was just weird, quite honestly. "How's you?"

"Ok," said Jessica. "How 'bout you? Famous yet?"

"Getting there," said Oscar. "We're warming up for the Chilis on Friday night."

Jessica's eyes widened. "_Are_ you?"

"Yep. I'll get you an autograph."

"Yeah, you'd better."

"So Mom tells me you've found yourself a boyfriend."

Jessica scowled. "What ever gave her _that_ idea?"

"Oh, come on - tell me you don't know I'm talking about."

"I don't know who you're talking about."

"Guy called Cameron? Just moved in across the street?"

"Oh, him," Jessica said airily. "He's not my boyfriend."

"No?"

"No. He's just some guy who… well, who moved in across the street. He doesn't know anyone around here. His mother's insane. I'm just being friendly. You'd have done the same thing if you were here. Speaking of which, when are you coming home?"

The front door opened and Peter walked in. Jessica smiled and waved. Peter smiled back, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head as he walked past.

"I don't know," said Oscar. "Probably Christmas."

"_Christmas_! It's _ages _'til Christmas!"

"A couple of months, that's all. And anyway, so what? I thought you'd enjoy having the bathroom all to yourself. Don't tell me you're missing me."

"Of course not."

"Good. I don't miss you either. We're having a blast out here."

"Dad just got home," said Jessica. "Would you like to talk to him?"

"Yeah, in a sec," said Oscar. "But listen - I want you to be careful with this Cameron person."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Oscar…"

"I mean it. Don't you remember what I told you about guys? Only after one thing? Brains in our boxers? Commonly misinterpret friendliness from females as invitations to ravish them? Remember this?"

"Of course I remember."

"Promise me you'll be careful."

"I'm not stupid."

"Really?" said Oscar, in exaggerated tones. "You've been doing a very good impression of it for the past thirteen years."

"That's so funny I can't even laugh."

"Can I talk to Dad now, please?"

"Sure," said Jessica, her heart sinking slightly. She didn't quite feel ready to stop talking to him yet. "I'll fetch him for you."

"Thanks."

"Bye."

"See ya."

Jessica placed the receiver on the small table where the phone was kept and wandered into the living room, where she had seen her father disappear to. He was in there with Dana, nursing a PKE meter. They were sitting together on the sofa, talking quietly, but they stopped this when Jessica came in.

Her eyes narrowed. "You've been talking about me."

"Actually," said Peter, "we haven't." He handed Dana the PKE meter and said, "Maybe you'd better tell her about this. She might be in danger from it too, come to think of it."

"Oh." Dana pulled a face. "Do you really think so?"

"I don't know… I guess if she was, someone would have warned me. They only seemed concerned about you."

"Dad," said Jessica. "Oscar's on the phone."

"Oh, great." Peter stood up and made for the hallway. "How is he?"

"Good," said Jessica. "He sounds really happy."

Peter left his wife and daughter alone in the room together - an action which, just lately, had often proved unwise. It really seemed that Jessica's relationship with her mother had plummeted since Oscar left. They were all missing him, of course. Peter hoped that things would calm down between them when the gaping wound that was Oscar's absence was not quite so raw.

"Mom," said Jessica. "What did you tell Oscar about Cameron?"

"Nothing," Dana said hastily. She had the PKE meter now, and was turning it over in her hands. "Well, I may have mentioned him."

"What do you think he's going to _do_ to me?"

"I don't know, Jessica. Teenage boys are very unpredictable."

"I thought they were 'only after one thing'."

"Yes, well, many of them are."

"Well _I'm_ not. Don't you trust me?"

"Oh honey, of course I do."

"So why are you so anti-Cameron?"

"Because he's older and bigger than you. It's _him_ I don't trust. Look, honey." Dana put down the PKE meter and assumed an I-know-what-I'm-talking-about expression. "I _do_ understand. I knew a Cameron when I was about your age. He had this way of looking at me when I was talking to him, like I was the only person in the world."

Jessica eyed her suspiciously. "So what's your point?"

"Only that I know how you're feeling. But there's no need to rush. Just slow down a bit. You're only thirteen."

Only thirteen. Jessica knew what she was getting at. Dana had been using phrases like "no need to rush" and "only thirteen" since her younger child had been sat down in front of a sex ed video at school last year (so embarrassing for all of them, poor kids). Prior to this, Jessica always assumed that her mother believed her to be ignorant of such things. She wasn't, though. Oscar had given his impressionable little sister her first dose of sex education when she was four and he nine. Horrified, she had gone straight to her father, seeking reassurance that Oscar was either lying or had misunderstood. Unfortunately Peter only confirmed what she had been told, and even explained it in a little more detail (not much more - just so that it made a bit more sense than what Oscar had said).

Even at age four, Jessica had felt unable to talk to her mother about all that jazz. Dana had been helping her through puberty, true enough, but now… Well, as her mother was so keen to point out, Jessica was only thirteen, and she didn't feel anywhere near ready to try anything more than kissing (she had been kissed twice, by her vampire boyfriend Will, and kind of liked it the second time). But the thought of sex and related activities no longer sickened and repulsed her. Now… well, now she was kind of curious, and full of questions. What was it like, did it hurt, how much, approximately how many times before it felt good, how could one tell when it was the right time and the right guy…?

But, quite honestly, whom could she ask? The first person she usually went to for advice was Peter. But of course she couldn't do that this time, partly because his experiences were entirely male while she was interested in the female perspective, but mostly because it would be excruciatingly embarrassing for both of them. But she couldn't go to Dana either. She really, _really_ couldn't go to Dana, because Dana was likely to give one of two possible responses. She would either be shocked and appalled, tell Jessica that it was dirty and wrong and she must never ever so much as _think_ about that kind of thing before her wedding night (ha! - like she was ever going to have a wedding night) and rush out to buy her a chastity belt (or maybe get one on-line - they were probably hard to come by).

Or else - well, she would answer the questions. And in doing so, she would draw on her own experiences - experiences that Jessica really did _not_ want to hear about. The only people she knew whom her mother had (eww!) slept with were Oscar's biological father - creep, nerdy classical music lover, child-abandoner and general all-round prick (and definitely _not_ of the sexy love-'em-and-leave-'em prick variety); and of course… ok, cancel that thought. It was too disgusting to contemplate. It was, quite frankly, the sickest thing imaginable. Besides which, unfortunately for Jessica, she hadn't quite been able to hold on to the assumption her four-year-old self had made that her mother had only done _that_ (eww, ick) with each of them once (two men, two unthinkable acts, two babies - so obvious, so simple). She still liked to pretend, of course, but the bigger part of her knew that it was probably not true.

"So what were you and Dad talking about?"

"His work," said Dana. "Apparently there's a demon on the loose that likes to seduce people."

Oh God. Jessica had thought she was changing the subject. Did absolutely everything have to come back to sex?

x x x

It was getting on for ten p.m. when Roland parked the Ecto-1, with Garrett in the back, outside Eduardo and Kylie's apartment block. Maybe it was early to start, but then again maybe it wasn't. Who was to say when incubuses/incubi/whatever did their thing? Who was to say they didn't do it at two o'clock in the afternoon? Hey, some of them probably did. But so far, this one had been operating at night.

"What are _you_ doing here?" demanded Garrett, when Kylie got into the car.

"It's best if I go," said Kylie. "Eddie agrees."

"Oh, I get it," said Roland. "You pointed out what might happen if you were left alone in your bed tonight."

"I did," said Kylie, "and I think it would be stupid for me to stay home alone with two sleepy little girls while there's an incubus loose in the city. Don't you?"

Garrett bit his lip. He hadn't thought of that, stupidly, and he had a wife and two-year-old son at home. Max so rarely slept, of course - it might very well take more than incubus magic to tire him out.

"Yes," said Roland. "You're right, of course. Maybe we should have left you both at home and got somebody else to come along."

"Look," Kylie said irritably. "I am perfectly capable of exercising self-control."

"Kylie, you've read about incubi," said Roland. "You know what they can do. There are even reports of them seducing nuns. Why should _you_ be immune?"

"Maybe because I know what to look out for?"

"Yeah," said Garrett. "Eddie. Or at least you have to hope so for the sake of your marriage."

"If I don't see Eduardo," Kylie said tartly, "I shall assume this is the kind of incubus that can't appear in the form of the man I most desire."

"Oh yeah? What if you see Egon or somebody?"

"Don't be so childish, Garrett," Roland said irritably. "Now listen. You remember all that work we did this afternoon." They'd been trawling through the internet and phoning round all the New York newspapers, looking for maybe-rapes that could potentially be incubus incidents. "After you both went home, Egon and I stuck some pins in a map and came up with this." He pulled a hand-drawn map of Manhattan out of the breast pocket of his jumpsuit and showed it to Kylie and Garrett. "Well, it wasn't _exactly_ this, but near enough - and the locations that don't quite fit could easily have not been the incubus."

"Now that," said Kylie, running her eye over the beginnings of a clockwork spiral of dots drawn onto the map, "is very weird. I didn't read anything about _that_ kind of behaviour."

"So what, we think it'll hit the Upper West Side tonight?" asked Garrett, his eye following the spiral to that particular location.

"We certainly do," said Roland, and pulled the car into gear.

There were, unavoidably, gaps in the maybe-spiral. The incubus might well have been to all the places it apparently skipped without anyone noticing - after all, it had powers of hypnosis and shape shifting abilities. And it was, of course, entirely possibly that it had already seduced several women living in the Upper West Side without their realising it because the demon was assuming the shape of a husband or a lover. The Ghostbusters knew this, and were quite prepared to follow the incubus to its next likely location. This, however, proved unnecessary. There was already a warm PK trail waiting for them.

"Not to sound bitter or anything," said Kylie, as she pushed open the entrance to an impressive apartment block, "but I think it's appalling how some people live like _this_ while other people live in cardboard boxes."

"Kylie, are you a communist?" asked Garrett.

Kylie shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

"You know John McEnroe lives in this very apartment block, don't you?"

"I knew he lived somewhere round here."

"Don't you think he earned it?"

"I concede that he was a talented athlete in his day, but it was tennis. Tennis is an elitist sport. He had rich parents, you know - things would have been much harder for him if he hadn't. And it's immoral how much athletes earn. What's the prize money at Wimbledon these days? Twenty thousand pounds? Something like that?"

"You _do_ know that the men are paid more than the women in three out of the four grand slam tournaments, don't you?"

Kylie scowled. "I know."

"Stop bickering, you two," said Roland. "Come over here - I've found out why we haven't been thrown out by the doorman."

He was standing over the limp form of a uniformed man, who was sprawled on the floor and snoring quietly. Roland was holding a mildly excited PKE meter over him, just to eliminate the unlikely possibility that this guy was simply terrible at his job.

"Did it put the whole apartment block to sleep?" wondered Kylie.

Roland shrugged. "Guess so."

"So," said Garrett. "Some trophy wife is definitely getting lucky tonight. I wonder if it's Mrs. McEnroe."

"I hope so," said Kylie. "Everyone loves Super-Brat now - it's time he got a bit more bad publicity."

"You're cruel," said Garrett, studying his PKE meter. "But anyway, it looks like our demon headed up those stairs. I'll take the elevator; you guys'd better stick to the trail."

Roland nodded. "Agreed."

There was no danger of the elevator not working in a place like that. Garrett rolled over to it while Roland and Kylie started up the stairs.

"I'm wondering," Roland said as they walked, "about this whole spiral business. Do you think maybe it's trying to get to somewhere specific?"

"No," said Kylie. "I'm sorry, but I don't. I don't know about you, but if I want to get somewhere I don't travel in a spiral. I think it's just trying to cover as much ground as possible - you know, like mowing a lawn."

Roland frowned. "What?"

"How do you mow your lawn?"

"In straight lines."

"I would too, if I had a lawn, but some people prefer to start from the outside and spiral towards the middle. Either way you get all the grass. Or, in this case, you get a hell of a lot of women."

"Right," said Roland. "I see what you mean."

"He's sure gone a long way up," remarked Kylie, as they began to climb the fourth flight of stairs. "I wonder if he's been screwing his way through every woman in the apartment block."

"I see no reason to assume he hasn't."

"You know something? I don't know why we're bothering with this, really."

Roland turned round and gave her a withering look.

"Well," Kylie went on, "this incubus - it isn't doing anything a lot of human guys don't do. I mean it sees a woman it likes, it gets her to drop her guard, makes a lot of empty promises and convinces her to sleep with it, satisfies its lust, probably helps itself to her food in the morning and then walks out of her life forever. Happens to the best of us."

"Look, I know there are a lot of jerks out there, but most of them aren't dangerous. Not like the incubus, anyway. It can kill people."

"But it _doesn't_. At least, not in anything I've read. I found this story about a nun who was raped by the local priest in the eighteenth century, and he claims it wasn't him but an incubus assuming his form. The nun was discredited for apparently lusting after the priest, but she didn't suffer any physical damage. Well, besides the obvious."

"Well personally," said Roland, "I think the priest was probably lying about that."

"I think so too. God, men can be such assholes."

"So can women."

"True."

The upward trail stopped one floor short of the penthouse, and veered off to the left. Roland and Kylie followed it to, interestingly enough, Garrett, who was waiting outside the door to somebody's apartment.

"Ah, Kylie, you've finally realised your feelings for me," he purred. "Forget that slacker with the dumb little goatee and give in to your true desires."

Kylie exhaled heavily. "I can't be bothered to think of a clever answer. So how are we gonna play this? Is the door locked?"

"I don't know - I didn't just want to burst in," said Garrett.

"Well." Kylie strode towards the door. "I'm afraid we're gonna have to."

She tried the door handle and, to her surprise, the door wasn't locked. Then she saw that the lock had been forced. It made sense, of course - the incubus was walking around with a bodysuit made of human flesh, so he was unlikely to be fazing through anything.

The PKE meters began to buzz more insistently as the three Ghostbusters entered the apartment, but none of them particularly noticed. They all became distracted by the rude noises coming from one of the bedrooms. Roland, Kylie and Garrett all stopped and felt awkward for a few moments. Then Garrett said, "Kylie, you go in."

"Why me?" demanded Kylie.

"Because that woman, whoever she is, will be less freaked out if it's a woman who bursts into her bedroom and - "

"What, shoots the guy she's having sex with? How do you figure that one out?"

"Oh, come on. Imagine if it was you. Which of us would you rather -?"

"All right, all right, I'm going. Jesus, Garrett, you and your twisted logic."

Kylie had hoped for a few things during her life - relatively small things, like doing well in her education, and bigger things, like one day being reunited with her friend Jack who went missing when they were children. But now she was experiencing a new kind of hope altogether. She couldn't remember ever hoping for anything more fervently than she was now hoping that the woman in that bedroom wasn't innocently making love with her husband.

Taking a deep breath, Kylie pushed open the door and readied her proton pistol. She was encouraged when the woman didn't scream or threaten to call the police or anything like that. Her lover, meanwhile, climbed calmly off the bed. He, along with more or less everything in the room, was slightly illuminated by the artificial light trickling in from the street outside.

Kylie glanced at the woman lying on the bed. She was either in a deep sleep, or she was dead. Keeping her proton pistol between herself and the vague shape wandering around the room, Kylie slowly approached the bed and was soon able to see that the woman was breathing. That was interesting: screaming her head off with pleasure one moment and falling into impenetrable sleep the next. Kylie allowed herself a wry smile. Truth be told, it wasn't the first time she had encountered that particular phenomenon.

"Kylie!" Garrett's voice called. "What's going on in there?"

Kylie turned round sharply, and just caught sight of the incubus's naked form making for the bedroom doorway. "Not so fast!" she said, steadying her proton pistol on his back, and to her surprise the demon stopped (well, he could probably have made a clean getaway). Then he turned in the doorway, and she sensed that he was smiling.

"Kylie." He walked slowly towards her. "Fancy seeing you here."

Self control, self, control… She watched his face as it came nearer to her, the window and what little light was in the room. It was handsome all right, but it wasn't the face she had expected to see. Thankfully it wasn't the face of any old flames either; she had never seen this one before in her life. But still, it unnerved her. Most of what she had read seemed to indicate that she should be seeing Eduardo right now. So why the hell was she looking at some stranger? What did _that_ mean?

She watched his face as it came nearer to her, the window and what little light was in the room. It was handsome all right, but it wasn't the face she had expected to see. Thankfully it wasn't the face of any old flames either; she had never seen this one before in her life. But still, it unnerved her. Most of what she had read seemed to indicate that she should be seeing Eduardo right now. So why the hell was she looking at some stranger? What did mean? 

The incubus placed his hands on her arms, and suddenly her eyelids felt heavy. She vaguely wondered why Garrett and Roland weren't coming to her rescue, anti-feminist as that was. Hmm… maybe it _would_ have been better to send Eduardo on this job. Kylie started to think about him, all tucked up in bed at home like a candy bar just waiting to be unwrapped and devoured. Then she looked up, and saw this complete stranger about to kiss her.

It was just as well he _didn't_ look like Eduardo. If he did, she would have been tempted to fall into bed with him right there and then, never mind that a hypnotised sleeping woman would have been in there with them. But he didn't look like anyone she knew. He just looked like an averagely good looking man. _Come on, Kylie, self control…_

She forced herself to wake up and shot a short, sharp burst of proton fire directly at his abdomen. The incubus cried out and stumbled backwards. Kylie continued to shoot at him, following him across the room, frustrated that she couldn't seem to hold him in her proton stream. And then, when she saw him cowering behind charred arms (ooh, they were nice arms, but anyway…), she realised why. He was walking around inside actual human flesh. The proton stream couldn't penetrate it. _Duh_.

Kylie lowered her proton pistol and stared at the cowering demon. It took him a few seconds to realise that she had finished her assault, and then he gradually got to his feet. Kylie's eyes widened. To think she'd actually found that thing attractive just moments earlier! Now it was easy to tell that its flesh was _definitely_ dead. It was dropping off every part of him, his face sliding down to his shoulders like a melting snowman. He stared at Kylie through angry red eyes. Those were the demon's eyes. They had to be, as the human eyes it had been using were now lying on the floor in a pool of their own fluid, still swaying like jelly from the force of impact, knocking into each other and then moving apart. It was truly disgusting, and Kylie had to look away.

Then she felt movement beside her and turned round, realising that the demon had run past her. She went over to the open window, leaned out and saw that what remained of the human flesh had been deposited on the fire escape. Now, apparently, the demon had no human form.

For a moment Kylie wondered to do. Then she decided that the most urgent thing in need of her attention was the welfare of her two colleagues. She crossed the room, stepping over the mounds of dead flesh and holding back considerable amounts of vomit, and made her way into the living room where she had left Roland and Garrett.

"Great," muttered Kylie, seeing her two team-mates sleeping contentedly on the floor, one on each side of a mahogany coffee table, Garrett's wheelchair next to his head. "So maybe it wouldn't have been wise to send Eduardo. GUYS! Come on - wake up!"

Coincidentally they did wake up, but Kylie was fairly sure her shouting at them hadn't been what did it. The incubus had left, and the whole building should be waking up at any moment. Which meant…

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" A piercing scream came from the bedroom.

"Oh God." Kylie fell to her knees, if only to be on a level with Roland and Garrett, who were just beginning to sit up. "She's just woken up and found several lumps of dead flesh in her room."

"Eww," remarked Garrett.

"Where's the incubus?" asked Roland.

"It left. I damaged its makeshift body - it will have gone to the nearest morgue."

"So let's get after it," said Garrett, climbing into his chair.

"No way." Kylie rose to her feet. "Before we do anything else we have to explain things to that woman in there, and you are _not_ leaving me to do that on my own."

"Do we have to?" asked Garrett. "Can't we just sneak out and pretend we were never here?"

As if in answer to his question, the ceiling light clicked on. Roland, Garrett and Kylie all turned their heads to see a tousle-haired, robe-wrapped young woman standing in the doorway, looking at once angry, frightened, confused and like she was about to throw up.

"Hi," Kylie said sheepishly, making a very weak attempt at a smile. "We _can_ explain all of this, if you'll just bear with us."

x x x

The woman who lived underneath the penthouse decided not to take any kind of legal action against the Ghostbusters, largely because she didn't want her husband (away on business, which Kylie immediately decided must mean he was having an affair) to find out about the incubus incident. Other than that, however, the team hadn't much good news to offer Egon the next morning.

"It was a complete shambles," Kylie told him. She had been volunteered for this task, and it was just the two of them, Roland and Garrett not wanting to have to tell their boss that they fell asleep on the job. "I nearly kissed it, Garrett and Roland fell asleep…"

Egon raised his eyebrows. "Garrett and Roland fell _asleep_?"

"Well, they were probably hypnotised."

"Ah, I see. Yes, that _is_ going to be a problem."

"And that poor woman," Kylie went on. "She wakes up after what seems like an extremely racy dream to find three armed strangers in her apartment and a pile of human flesh on her bedroom floor! We had to clean that up, you know. It was horrible. I'll never complain about my kids throwing up on my clothes again."

"Right," said Egon. "We'll obviously have to rethink this. In the meantime I'd like somebody to call round and find out if any more cadavers have gone missing."

"Well _I'm_ not doing it," said Kylie. "I've had to do everything. _I_ had to burst into that woman's bedroom. _I_ had to shoot the incubus. _I_ had to tell you what a dog's dinner we made of the whole thing. And I had to clean up the eyes, you know. Roland and Garrett were both too wussy to go near them."

"Well," said Egon. "Why not ask Eduardo to do it? He _did_ miss out on the fieldwork."

"Yeah." Kylie pursed her lips. She was still a bit concerned about the incubus not having resembled Eduardo even remotely. "Listen, have we got any more information on the incubus? Anything I might not have read?"

"Possibly. You can look."

"I will."

She had brought her two small daughters, Conchita (five-and-a-half) and Rose (two-and-three-quarters - aww), with her that day, largely because she and Eduardo both felt bad about asking Eduardo's brother and sister-in-law to take them while they were still (still!) working their way through some marital problems. The girls were being entertained by Charlene, who had done all her homework and was at a loose end for the rest of the weekend, when Kylie entered the rec room.

"Hi, Charlene," she said.

"Hi," Charlene responded.

"Babe," Kylie said to Eduardo, silently telling herself to stop worrying about the goddamn incubus. She loved him, she wanted him, all that. It didn't matter that the incubus hadn't in any way resembled him. Really it didn't. No, really. "Egon wants you to call around and find out if any more cadavers have gone missing."

Eduardo pulled a face. "How am I supposed to find _that_ out?"

"Oh, come on, it shouldn't be a problem for you - you've got contacts in the police force and stuff."

"You mean Carlos. He's not working today."

"Excuses, Eddie."

"Right, right." Eduardo glanced at his daughters, and found he didn't much like the idea of them listening to one side of a conversation about grave robbing. "I'll go downstairs."

He went, and literally bumped into Peter Venkman in the doorway. Peter didn't bother saying sorry or oops or hello or anything like that. He said, "How can you live with three women?"

Eduardo cocked an eyebrow. "I wouldn't be without them."

"Well, no, neither would I," said Peter. "I love them like crazy, but really, it's insane! Just you wait until your two are teenagers."

"It's a long way off," said Eduardo.

"It may seem that way now…"

"Have they been bickering again?" asked Charlene.

"Yes." Peter stepped aside to let Eduardo out, and then walked into the room.

"Was it about Cameron?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Just wondered. When we talked to him yesterday, Dana didn't seem to like it very much. And Jess called me last night to have a rant about Dana getting Oscar to warn her off. She yelled at me for twenty minutes and then put the phone down. I don't think I said one word the entire conversation."

"We've got a Cameron at school," Conchita volunteered.

"Oh yes?" said Peter. "And what's _he_ like?"

"He's a lot of fun."

"Handsome?"

"Sure, I guess. He's not ugly."

"Well, there's a tip for you," said Peter, looking from Charlene to Kylie. "If you ever have a son and you want him to have an easy time in life, name him Cameron."

x x x

Sunday, getting on for three thirty and Jessica still hadn't done any homework. It wasn't unusual. It wasn't unusual at all. She had been known to go to eight o'clock on Sunday night without so much as picking up a pen. She had been finding ingenious ways of putting it off all day: channel hopping, surfing the net, rearranging the icons on her computer desktop and even tidying _and_ cleaning her bedroom.

"Ok," she said, when she had grimaced her way through an entire documentary about liposuction. "Time to knuckle down."

Great. She'd been alone in the house for all of half an hour and already she was talking to herself. Peter had been at work all day (to escape the bickering, his very suspicious daughter thought), and Dana had experienced some sort of grocery crisis whilst planning dinner and had to make an emergency trip to the supermarket with a promise that she would be back "soon". Well, that could mean more or less anything.

Jessica took her feet out from under her and placed them on the ground. It was a couple of minutes before she could be bothered to go the rest of the way to standing up. She managed it eventually, however, and couldn't help cutting a glance at the big bay window at the front of the room. That window provided an excellent view of Cameron's house, and sometimes of Cameron too. Not this time, however. This time, for once in a way, Jessica found herself looking at Cameron's mother. She had actually gone outside. Amazing! This was unheard of!

Curious, Jessica moved a few steps towards the window. She wasn't usually the type to spy on her neighbours, but this time… well, she had no excuse, but she was going to do it anyway. Cameron's mother (she really should find out her name) looked to be in her mid-thirties - maybe just a bit young to have a son of fifteen or sixteen. And she looked just like him. The same hair, the same mouth, the same lightly tanned skin… the same eyes as well, probably, but Jessica couldn't see them from all the way across the street.

Cameron's mother opened the garage, disappeared inside and moments later backed her car out of it. Then she drove off down the street. Jessica was pretty amazed by this, but not too amazed to act. This was an opportunity not to be wasted. She ran upstairs, pulled on her sneakers, ran back down the stairs again and flung open the front door.

Cameron was already outside, sitting on his front porch, his beautiful long-lashed midnight eyes closed, evidently enjoying the feel of the sun on his face (as well he might - he so rarely went outside, his mother being strangely agoraphobic on his behalf). Jessica strode across the street, approached him and said brazenly, "Hi."

His eyes fluttered open and he smiled that beautiful smile of his. "Hi," he said, in a voice that somehow made Jessica think of a warm vat of pure liquid chocolate.

"How's it going?"

"Not bad. I'm looking forward to tomorrow, to be honest. I know kids are supposed to hate school, but at least I'll get to see a bit of the outside world."

"Can I ask a rude question?"

"Is it: why does my mother make me stay indoors so much?"

"Yes," said Jessica. "And why do you put up with it?"

Cameron shrugged. "It's complicated, but basically I'm what you might call incident prone. Stuff happens to me, and to the people around me."

Jessica cocked an eyebrow. "Really? What stuff?"

"Honestly," said Cameron, rising to his full height, "I'd rather not say. A lot of it is kind of weird. You'd probably think I was nuts. Or lying."

"I doubt it. My dad's a Ghostbuster."

Cameron blinked. "He is?"

"Didn't you know?"

"No." He paused, not taking his eyes from her face for a few long moments (now _that_ was nice). "Mom's gone out. Would you like to come in for a soda or something?"

"Or something?" echoed Jessica. "Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know." If smiles could kill… "A snack, maybe? A game of Parcheesi? A philosophical discussion? Whatever you want."

"Sure," said Jessica. "If you've got nothing better to do."

Cameron turned and pulled open the door. "Come on in."

As Jessica entered the house, she crossed two thresholds at once: the literal and the metaphorical. This was the first time she'd noticed and appreciated the back view of a guy in tight jeans.

"What would you like?" He took her through to the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. "Coke? Sprite? Mineral water?"

"Mineral water?" Jessica echoed scathingly. "That's the biggest scam going. It's from somebody's kitchen sink. You _do_ know that, don't you?"

"Oh, Jessica. So young and yet so cynical."

"I'll have a Coke, thanks. Assuming you mean the kind you drink."

"Of course."

Cameron took two Cokes from the fridge and handed one to Jessica. Their fingers touched, and he gave her a look that made her think that all too brief contact had been very deliberate. Hmm… maybe she _should_ let him know she was only thirteen.

"So what have you been up to?" Cameron asked chattily, as Jessica cracked open the Coke. "I noticed your mom going out. Have you been over there all by yourself?"

"Mhm." Jessica nodded, absently sipping on the Coke while she stared into his eyes. They were just so beautiful… "I've been putting off doing my homework."

"Not a fan of school, huh?"

"No."

"I never met anybody who is. So what _are_ you into?"

"Um." Jessica had to think for a minute. She was finding the sound of his voice - so smooth, so silky, so wonderful - strangely hypnotic. "I don't know. The usual stuff. Sports, movies… and you can't live with my brother for thirteen years without being interested in music or he'd drive you nuts."

"You got a brother?"

"Ah-ha."

"I haven't seen him around."

"He's in, um… Memphis."

"Cool. We lived in Tennessee for a couple of years. How old is he?"

"Um… he's, um… eighteen."

"Right, so there's an older brother as well as a protective father. I'd better watch…"

She stopped listening. She couldn't listen anymore. His voice seemed to be fading away, besides which she had to concentrate pretty hard on keeping hold of that Coke can. Were Coke cans always so damn heavy? It wasn't just the can, though. Her eyelids, her knees, most of her body in fact, felt like it was being pulled down by lead weights.

"Jess…"

That was her name, she knew that much, and she thought she should probably answer it. But she couldn't. She couldn't even open her mouth, never mind find her voice.

"Jess, are you ok?"

Not really, she thought, feeling her knees begin to sag. And then it all went black.

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

_Extreme Ghostbusters: _**The Trouble With Guys**

Part 2

Winston Zeddemore was getting bored. Very bored. He and Roland had been driving all over Manhattan in the Ecto-1, trying to pick up the trail of this stupid incubus. No one had seen it, heard it, kissed it, screwed it, anything. Absolutely no one. They had been at it for almost two hours before Winston, while Roland was refilling the car, decided to radio HQ.

"It's gone," he said. "It's nowhere. No one's seen it."

"Really?" Egon's voice sounded dubious. "And you started by following the spiral?"

"Yes," Winston said impatiently. "It's not doing the spiral thing anymore. It's hiding from something. From us, probably - it knows we're onto it now."

"True," said Egon. "Eduardo left messages with officials all over the city to call us if any cadavers should go missing, but people don't always take very much notice of requests like that. I might start calling round again."

"Why bother? If it's not doing anything it won't need a human form. I really think it's moved on, Egon."

Roland climbed into the car, having paid for the fuel.

"If that's true," said Egon, "it would be extremely unfortunate. But I still think there's something in this spiral business. Kylie told me her lawn mowing theory, but I'm not convinced."

"We're coming back," said Winston. "This is futile."

Roland drove them back to the firehouse, and they quickly found Egon and Peter in Egon's lab, puzzling over their sizeable map of New York - the one they always stuck their pins in. Charlene was with them (evidently bored of childminding), frowning down at an open atlas and tracing some kind of shape over the open page with her finger.

"I don't know," Egon was saying. "I've never heard of an incubus behaving so predictably like this. Nor a succubus, come to that. It's almost like it's gravitating towards something."

Charlene looked up from her atlas when she heard the new arrivals approaching. "Hi, Dad," she said. "Hi, Roland. Any joy?"

Winston shook his head.

"Bummer." She didn't sound like she cared very much. "Egon thinks the incubus is - well, _was_ - gravitating towards something, and I was just wondering what. It's interesting." She turned her head to look at Egon and Peter. "If you continue this spiral until you can't take it any further it almost leads to - "

She was cut off by Peter's cell phone, of all things, and scowled. In spite of being a modern youth, Charlene thought cell phones were incredibly rude, the way they always interrupted entire conversations. Why was it that goodness knew who calling from goodness knew where invariably received priority over someone already in the middle of a face-to-face conversation? It hardly seemed right. Peter, to give him his dues, did offer her an apologetic smile as he whipped out the phone and looked at the caller display.

"It's Dana," he said. "I'd better get it - it might be important."

Dana occasionally called him during the day, and it was usually important enough to warrant a phone call - she wasn't the kind of person to call somebody at work just for the hell of it. Generally they were just minor important things, like requests that Peter pick Jessica up from soccer practice because Dana couldn't get there for whatever reason.

But not this time. Peter got as far as saying "Hello" when he fell silent, his smile fell away into a look of sheer terror and his face completely drained of colour. Finally, after several seconds of Dana telling him God knew what, he said shakily, "I'm on my way." Then he hung up.

Winston said it first: "What's wrong?"

"Jess… I have to go," said Peter.

"Jess?" Charlene began to panic. "Is she ok?"

"I don't know."

"But what…?"

He was already gone. Wide-eyed, Charlene looked up at Winston. "What's happened?" she asked, even though she knew he had no more idea than she did.

Winston shook his head in a gesture of ignorance. "I'm sure we'll find out," he said.

x x x

When Jessica woke, all she saw was white - a stark contrast to the blackness that had overwhelmed her what seemed like seconds earlier. It probably wasn't seconds, though. She felt like she had been asleep for a long time, but the feeling wasn't a bad one. She felt rested, in fact, and more than ready to get off this… this… what was it?

She swung her legs down and sat up. It was a bed. A hard one. Christ, she was in a hospital! This deduction was pretty much confirmed almost immediately when a nurse suddenly stepped in front of her and grabbed her face.

"Whoa, hey, cut that out!" exclaimed Jessica, batting away the hand that was prising open her left eye (the other hand held a little torch at the ready). "What the hell is going on?"

"We're not sure yet," said the nurse. "We're just waiting for the results of your blood test to come back, and then the police are going to question the boy. And they'll want to question you too, honey. How are you feeling?"

"I feel fine," Jessica said truthfully. "What's with the hospital gown? Where the hell are my clothes?" She couldn't help wondering who'd enjoyed the pleasure of _that_ little task.

"In the locker."

Jessica jumped off the bed, barged past the nurse and pulled a clean set of jeans, t-shirt, sweater and underwear out of the small locker by the bed.

"Do you have any pain?" the nurse asked anxiously. "Do you feel sore… you know…?"

"What do you mean?" asked Jessica, and then saw that the nurse seemed to be looking directly at her crotch. "Look, lady, would you mind not staring at me while I get dressed? Hang on - these aren't the clothes I was wearing. What happened to them? Those cargo pants are special, you know - I waited years for my brother to grow out of those."

"The police have all the clothes you were wearing when you came in."

"_What_?"

The question shot off her tongue automatically, but it was now clear to Jessica that the nurse was unwilling or unable to help - or else she was just dismally stupid. Jessica, in spite of the nurse's feeble protest ("Oh… I don't think you should…"), charged towards the double doors and burst through them, stepping out into a small corridor. And in this corridor was a scene that made Jessica's jaw drop like a lead balloon.

Cameron was there, looking terrified and cowering away from Peter who, Jessica's eyes insisted (though she had trouble believing them), was being restrained by two large police officers. Someone in a white coat was there - a doctor of some kind, presumably (well, it _was_ a hospital) - and a female police officer was talking to him in a low voice.

Then suddenly Jessica's view was obscured by the face of her own mother taking up the whole of her peripheral vision. She felt tight fists grabbing her elbows, and then she realised she was being violently shaken. Shaken!

"YOU STUPID GIRL!" screamed Dana. "YOU STUPID, STUPID GIRL!"

And then, quite suddenly, she burst into tears. She stopped shaking and crushed her daughter against her chest. A moment later Jessica felt more hands on her. It was Peter. She knew his touch straightaway. Dana loosened her hold just slightly, and then suddenly Jessica was sandwiched between them.

"Hey!" Her voice was muffled against Dana's chest. "What the hell is going on?"

"Excuse me, Dr. and Mrs. Venkman."

Jessica was freed as the two bodies crushing her were pulled forcibly apart, and suddenly she was looking into the kind yet authoritative face of the female police officer.

"Miss Venkman, would you be able to come to the station to answer a few questions?"

"Are you crazy?" shrieked Dana, taking Jessica into her arms again. "She's only just woken up! She needs to talk to some kind of counsellor! She feels terrible!"

"I feel fine," said Jessica.

"I can't allow her to be discharged yet," the white-coated doctor chimed in. "I need to check her over, and the test results haven't even come back yet."

"What," grated Jessica, "is going on? What are these test results?"

"I didn't do anything to her!" It was Cameron's voice, coming from somewhere behind the throng of people fussing around her. "It was me who called the freaking ambulance! Jess, tell them!"

Peter suddenly lost it again. "How dare you talk to her!" he raged, lunging for Cameron, but he was immediately restrained once again by the two large police officers.

"Now then, Jessica," their female colleague said patronisingly. "We don't know how long we'll have to wait for the results of your blood test, but after you've been discharged you'll have to come with us to have an _examination_. It won't be pleasant, but - "

"What kind of _ex-am-in-a-tion_?" Jessica asked, mocking her patronising tone.

"For evidence."

"Evidence?"

"_Forensic_ evidence."

"You won't find any!" Cameron wailed desperately. "She passed out and I couldn't wake her up so I called an ambulance!"

"Save it for the judge, sonny," an unfamiliar voice growled menacingly. It must have been one of the male police officers.

"Doctor?" A brand new voice, female this time. "Miss Venkman's blood tests came back. There was no evidence of any alien substances in her body."

Cameron breathed out heavily, but this was the only reaction anyone gave. The news seemed to stump everyone. Relieved, Jessica took the opportunity to speak.

"Listen," she said. "It was a sealed Coke can and I opened it myself. Cameron couldn't have slipped me anything, so Dad, stop overreacting. And you can keep your latex gloves the hell out of me, lady - I can tell you for nothing that I am definitely still a virgin. I just…" - she didn't want to say it - it was such a feeble, Victorian thing to do. But she was going to have to, so she took a deep breath and went on, "I just passed out for some reason. All right? And now I'd like my clothes back, and I'd kind of like to go home."

x x x

The call came at around four thirty. Janine went up to the immense gathering in the rec room - that was Eduardo, Kylie, Roland, Garrett, Winston, Egon, Charlene, Conchita, Rose (though she didn't really understand what all the fuss was about) and the twins, John and Eden Spengler - and said, "Dr. Venkman just called to let us know Jess is fine."

Charlene, Winston and Egon, who had witnessed the panic-inducing phone call, breathed out heavily.

"What happened?" asked Kylie.

"I'm not sure exactly," said Janine. "He was a bit vague, but apparently she collapsed and was taken to hospital, woke up a half-hour later and was fine."

Charlene pulled a face. "That's weird. Jess doesn't collapse."

"No," Janine agreed.

"She's definitely ok now?"

"Seems to be. I talked to her - she sounded fine."

"Right," said Egon. "Good. That's excellent news." He paused. "Can we talk about the incubus now?"

"It's gone," Eduardo surmised.

"Not necessarily."

"So what do you wanna do about it? We've got no leads."

"I'm going to try and trace its movements since last night," said Egon. "It may be that it's found itself a corpse without anyone noticing - by taking one out of the ground for example; it might still be following its spiral - there are several possibilities."

"Yeah, two," muttered Eduardo.

"Do I have any volunteers to come with me?"

"Sorry, Egon, but I'm going to have to pass," said Kylie. She really, really wanted to stay home that night and get over this stupid worry about her encounter with the incubus; and she really, really _didn't_ want another encounter with it. "I kind of need to catch up on my sleep," was the excuse she gave, and it was true enough.

"Me too," said Garrett. "I'm working at the hospital first thing tomorrow morning." As well as the ghostbusting, he worked shifts as a physiotherapist.

"I'll go with you," said Winston. Then, looking at Charlene, he said, "You and your mom will be ok with a PKE meter and a proton gun just in case, won't you?"

"Hmm?" Charlene was busy wondering whether it was necessary for her to call and check up on Jessica. "Yeah, sure, I guess. Chances are it won't come to us anyway. I mean, that would be a pretty big coincidence, wouldn't it?"

"You aren't really on the spiral," Roland added helpfully. "I can go with you tonight, Egon, if you let me go home for a while now and get some sleep."

Egon nodded. "Of course. You'd better do the same, Winston. I'll come and pick you both up in the Ecto-1 around nine."

x x x

What was it, Amy Jackson wondered, about older brothers? In some ways they were worse than fathers. In her experience, older brothers tended to be much more covert about their disapproval, pretending to be on your side when actually they were secretly planning ways to get your boyfriend out of the picture.

"Excuse me," Amy interrupted the rant that was pouring from the phone into her left ear. "Don't you remember my brothers saying these exact same things about you?"

"That's different," Oscar said stiffly.

"No it isn't, it's exactly the same."

"No, it's completely different."

"How?"

"I am a morally upstanding human being with entirely honourable intentions."

"Oh yes?" Amy cocked an eyebrow. It was true - he was - but he had been known to get carried away on occasion. "And how do you know this Cameron isn't?"

"I don't, but it hardly seems likely. The trouble with guys, AJ, is that they're all complete perverts - especially at that age."

"Ah-ha. And you're the exception that proves the rule, are you?"

"You know even I have my moments of weakness, babe," Oscar said dramatically. "But seriously - his name's _Cameron_. Camerons are always bad news. Ella went out with a Cameron once," Ella being Mood Slime's bassist. "He had sex with her in her parents' bed, went to the bathroom straight after and then she literally _never_ saw him again."

"We had a Cameron sniffing around school at the end of last year," said Amy. "He went through every single girl in our class."

Oscar's voice tightened considerably as he said, "Including you?"

"No. I told him I wasn't interested. I can look after myself, and so can Jess."

"If she wasn't interested," said Oscar, "I wouldn't worry. But when I talked to her I got the distinct impression that she _was_ interested, and Mom and Dad agree."

"Well, so what?" reasoned Amy. "She won't do anything rash. She's smart."

Oscar sighed deeply. "People say that. And she _is_ smart. Most of the time. But she can be extraordinarily stupid when the mood takes her. She was dumb enough to run into the Pacific Ocean before she learned how to swim."

"Really? How come she didn't drown?"

"She didn't get very far - I stopped her. Obviously we didn't let her run around the beach unsupervised."

We didn't let her. He was actually talking like one of her parents now.

"Well," said Amy, "that must have been a long time ago. And it's hardly the same."

"Oh, I don't know. The Pacific Ocean is sort of symbolic, really, isn't it? She's got an adventurous streak. She doesn't mind trying stuff out if it seems exciting."

Amy found herself nodding involuntarily. She knew all about being noticed by an attractive man and finding it exciting. Her two-year high school romance with Oscar was the best thing that had ever happened to her thus far. She was missing him like crazy - a state of affairs that, ironically, might not have been helped by his assertions that it meant more to him than she thought it should. After all, the deeper the feelings, the deeper the subsequent wounds. Actually, this kind of phone call from him made a nice change; they usually consisted of vast proclamations of love and rash promises that he would stay true to her. But she was so sure he wouldn't. He was a lovely guy with a lot of scruples; but the reality of it was that she was in New York, he was in Memphis, she was sixteen, he was eighteen, he was gorgeous and was singing like an angel to crowds of young girls several nights each week. It was only a matter of time, and she knew it.

"Look," she said reasonably. "Don't worry about Jess. She's got a lot of people looking out for her. I'd offer to talk to her about this, but I don't think I'm the best example if we're trying to stop her doing anything rash with a guy two years older than her."

"Yeah, well," said Oscar. "Can you just… you know… keep an eye on her for me?"

"God, you are so like Casey it's unreal."

"Please?"

"Would you be half so worried if he wasn't called Cameron?"

She never heard his answer. At this point the phone was whisked out of her hand and she heard Roland say, "It's a school night, Oscar." And then he hung up.

Amy stared at him open-mouthed, too shocked to be angry. She had four older brothers, and Roland really wasn't the worst of them. He had never done anything like that before.

"I'm sorry." Well, at least he had the decency to apologise. "I just don't like it. He's bound to meet somebody else out there. Or several somebodies. You _do_ know that, don't you?"

"Of course I do. It doesn't mean I can't still talk to him."

"It's late."

"It's barely nine o'clock."

"You would have talked to him all night, and you've got school tomorrow."

"Well," Amy said coolly, "I could get mad about your chronic inability to stay out of my business, but I don't think I'll bother." Then, having decided to keep her temper, she noticed he was in full uniform and asked, "Where are you off to?"

"I'm going to try to find an incubus."

"What's an incubus?"

"It's… um… well…"

"Oh, I see, it must do something I'm too young to understand. Don't worry, I'll look it up."

"Listen," Roland said gravely. "After I've gone, make sure all the doors and windows are locked. Don't let anybody in, not even if it's someone you know. All right?"

"All right."

"Good." He heard the sound of a car engine outside, and recognised it as the Ecto-1. "I gotta go. I'll see you tomorrow."

Roland left the house and climbed into the Ecto-1 where, as arranged, Egon and Winston were waiting for him. The latter was in the driver's seat while the former fiddled with a PKE meter.

"So where are we going?" asked Roland.

"Originally the plan was to start where you last saw it," said Egon.

"John McEnroe's apartment block." This had become the accepted term for the place.

"Yes, but now I'm not so sure that's wise. I've been getting readings from a very wide area. Faint ones. I had a drive around about an hour ago, because I wanted to get some idea of where it might be before we got started, and any readings have disappeared completely from all the places we thought it might go to next."

"So what do we do?" asked Roland.

"We follow it," Egon said simply, as Winston pulled the car into gear. "We drive into the supposed spiral and see if the readings get stronger."

"And if they don't?"

"Don't be such a pessimist," Winston cut in. "There's no point in crossing that bridge until we come to it. Now listen, Charlene told me she noticed that this spiral of yours could be going straight to the Venkmans' street."

"Or it might not," said Egon, somewhat unhelpfully. "It's hardly a perfect spiral - we only know vaguely where it's going."

"We aren't in the spiral now," said Roland, "as I recall."

"That's correct," said Egon. "It tends to stick to more affluent areas."

"So much for Kylie's lawn mowing theory."

"Maybe it likes money," Winston said blithely, braking as they approached a red light. "Or maybe it finds it easier to move in lots of little spirals than in one big one. You just never can tell with demons."

"What about its form?" asked Roland. "Do we know if it found itself a corpse?"

"No," said Egon. "I hope it has. It would slow it down, and generally make it easier to find. Trapping it will be the hard part whether it has a human form or not. If it does, we'll have to get the demon out."

"Quite a few years ago we had a case involving some weird little critters who walked around in what was basically dirt," Winston told Roland. "Coincidentally they were stealing food from a restaurant where Egon and Janine were having a date, but anyway, we were able to extract the entities by throwing soapy water all over them."

"It's the same principle," said Egon, "but it'll be much harder than that to disintegrate human flesh."

"It'll be dead," said Roland. "That ought to help."

"That's assuming it _has_ any flesh just now. Remember we couldn't find any information about any more cadavers going missing. Since it's been discovered, it might be in its demon form - but quite honestly I see no logic to that, because it can't do anything without a physical body. I do wonder why it hasn't moved on rather than behaving like this. It isn't fussy about its victims, and there are women all over the world."

"The whole thing is completely disgusting," Winston remarked suddenly. "It's rape and necrophilia all in one. And imagine if the corpse it took was somebody you knew!"

"Horrible," Roland said soberly.

"You know," Winston went on, "I read an incubus legend this morning that says there's only one of them. It used to be an angel, but it liked women a little too much to be the kind of guy they wanted in Heaven, so it got kicked out."

"Oh yes?" Egon, who had yet to take his eyes from his PKE meter, cocked an eyebrow. "That was very short-sighted of whoever's in charge of admissions in Heaven. It would have been far better for us mortals if they'd let him stay."

"It's only a story, Egon."

"Well, perhaps it's true. How can we know?"

"Excuse me," said Roland. He knew they had a long drive ahead of them before they got into assumed incubus territory, and he didn't want any arguments starting up. "I'm just wondering about Jess. It seems that the demon might possibly be heading right for her street, and she had that funny turn this afternoon. Might the two things be connected?"

"They might," Egon said disinterestedly. "That's an interesting thought. It doesn't seem to make much sense, though, Jessica having had her turn almost six hours ago and the incubus not having got there yet."

"Last we heard," said Winston.

They were silent after that. No one really knew what to think. Roland even wondered if maybe they weren't dealing with an incubus after all. His visit to the Upper West Side with Garrett and Kylie the previous night seemed to confirm that they were doing just that, but possibly they were assuming too much. After all, even Egon seemed puzzled by the demon's current behaviour.

They had got as far as Central Park East when Egon said, "Oh my."

"What's up?" asked Winston. "Do you want me to stop?"

"No," said Egon. "Actually it might be an idea to speed up a bit. The readings here were far stronger than this an hour ago. It's moving fast, and I should say it's not stopping on the way."

Roland shook his head, trying to understand. "This makes no sense."

"I'm going to Pete's house," announced Winston.

"That may prove to be a complete waste of time," Egon said dubiously.

"Or it might not. Look, Egon, we don't understand what this thing is doing. It might not even _be_ an incubus." Winston had evidently had the same thought as Roland. "Maybe it's just a demon with a really sick sense of humour. Maybe we encountered it before and it's as simple as a revenge mission."

"That's a lot of maybes, Winston. I don't like going on guesswork."

"Well, what else do we have? There's no logic to any of this - not unless it's going somewhere. And remember what happened to Jess. Jess doesn't faint."

"Look," Roland said reasonably. "Why don't we just keep following the trail and see if it actually _does_ take us to Dr. Venkman?"

Coincidentally enough, it did. Well, not straight to him - just his street. Winston brought the Ecto-1 to a screeching halt and the three Ghostbusters jumped out, Egon proclaiming, "Hmm… it really _is_ here."

"Over there." Roland, also examining a PKE meter, pointed to one of the four-bed terraced houses. "It seems to be in that house."

"No." Winston shook his head. "It's right outside the door."

Something - a faint haze - was vaguely visible in the artificial light of the residential street, at the foot of the house's front door. As they watched it, the haze seemed to grow. It was hard to follow, being near invisible - just a faint discolouration on the front of the house, which seemed to be seeping out from underneath the door.

"Maybe it got the wrong house," said Roland.

Egon shook his head and wondered out loud, "What is it _doing_?"

But he didn't wonder for long. It was there, it was in its demon form and it was vulnerable. Egon, Winston and Roland all locked a proton beam onto the demon. As they did this it began to take on something of a shape: eyes, arms, legs… and wings? It _could_ look faintly like an angel, Winston realised, if you looked for it.

"Roland, throw the trap!" Egon called out, somewhat unnecessarily - Roland was already in the process of reaching for the ghost trap he carried.

Then, quite suddenly, the front door to the house was pulled open. Someone screamed and leapt back; the three Ghostbusters instinctively shut off their proton streams.

"What the hell is going on out there?" shrieked a female voice.

"I'm sorry, ma'am!" called Roland, striding towards the house. "There was a demon outside your house, and - "

"Demon?" The woman reappeared in the open doorway. "Shit! Where is it now?"

"Um." Roland glanced at his PKE meter. "Gone."

"Right." The woman - small, dishevelled looking and probably in her mid-thirties - relaxed visibly. "Good."

"Do you know anything about this, ma'am?"

"No… no, not really. Who _are_ you?"

"Ghostbusters."

"Ghostbusters! Beautiful! Will you be sticking around?"

"Sticking around?" echoed Roland. He then turned to face his two colleagues and said, "What happens now? Do we try to follow it?"

"_No_!" the woman screeched in alarm. "That is… it might come back."

Roland gave her a measured look. "Might it?"

"Yes. Look, please stay. I'll pay you."

"Oh yes? May I ask your name?"

"Sure, fine. It's Alice Doherty."

"Has this happened before, Alice?"

"Oh, well… not exactly."

"Alice," said Roland. "If we're going to stay instead of going after it, we need a reason."

"Fine," said Alice. "Yes, it's happened before. Please will you stay?"

"I expect so," said Roland. "I'll have to talk to my bosses, but… Look, do you know what this thing is? Or what it wants?"

Alice shook her head.

"Well, maybe you'd better go inside now, ma'am. We'll take things from here."

"Right." Alice was only too pleased to shut the door on him, after which Roland distinctly heard her shouting, "Cameron? CAMERON!"

"That woman," said Roland, as he approached his two seniors, "knows more than she's letting on. And that's Cameron's house, it seems. Coincidence?"

"I just don't know," Egon sighed, absolutely hating the lack of understanding he had where this case was concerned. "What did she say, Roland?"

"She wants us to stay - she seems convinced the demon is going to come back. I asked her if it had happened before; she said 'not exactly', and when I asked her for a reason for us to say she changed her mind and said it _had_ happened before. And that's all she'd tell me."

"We _should_ stay," Egon decided. "Whether it's an incubus or not, it had a human form which it has now abandoned, and it's gravitated straight towards this house. Whatever it's after, that house or something in it is they key."

"Right." Winston looked towards the Ecto-1. "The old stakeout tactic." As he walked towards the car he looked up at Peter's house, exactly opposite Alice's. "They'll be all right in there, won't they?"

"The demon didn't seem interested in them," said Egon. "And if it comes back, we'll spot it. I see no reason to wake any of them, if that's what you're thinking. Interestingly the rest of the street seems to be sleeping peacefully."

"I'll take the first watch," offered Roland, as they climbed into the car. "We'll all need to sleep at some point."

"Right," said Winston. "Wake me in an hour."

Dull as it sounds, nothing happened. The demon apparently had some sense; it didn't reappear all night. As he sat through a shift, Winston and Roland sleeping in the back of the car, Egon worried that the demon had moved on and caused havoc somewhere else. But it was getting on for six o'clock - whatever the demon had done, it was too late.

Egon watched as the Venkmans' front door opened. He expected to see Dana walking out of it, as Peter didn't like getting up before noon; Egon had no idea what state of health Jessica was in, and anyway she wasn't a morning person at the best of times. He was surprised, therefore, when Peter approached the car with an inquiring expression on his face. Egon opened the door and climbed out.

x x x

Jessica had not slept well, due entirely to the residual traces of the previous evening's atmosphere. She was pretty sure that Dana was partly furious with her, partly relieved that she was all right and partly sheepish about her overreaction to the whole (ugh) fainting incident. As to her father, Jessica hadn't been able to read him at all. She'd caught him staring at her a couple of times with _some_ kind of expression on his face - she just couldn't tell what it was. No one had talked since they got back from the hospital. All that tension had eventually driven her upstairs, where she had showered and changed clothes (again) and finally fallen into an uneasy sleep.

Her alarm clock woke her up at six thirty, which wasn't pleasant at the best of times, and just horrible at a time like this. Jessica lay in bed for several minutes and tried not to think about things. Things popped into her head, however, in spite of her best efforts. She couldn't help thinking about Oscar. Now there was an older sibling it was impossible to live up to. Oscar was gorgeous, talented, a really lovely guy and he'd called two days ago to tell his family that his band was warming up for the Red Hot Chili Peppers on Friday night. And what had his little sister done the very next day? She had keeled over in someone's kitchen and got him accused of rape.

Jessica got up (driven primarily by the pressure on her bladder), went to the bathroom, threw on a few clothes and dumped some books in her school bag. She had hoped to make a clean getaway but, astonishingly, she met Peter on the stairs.

"You're up early," she remarked.

"I wanted to see how you were."

"I'm fine."

"Really?"

"Dad, I'm fine. There was never anything wrong with me."

Peter glanced at the book bag slung over her shoulder and said, "You're not going to school, are you?"

"Well," said Jessica, "it's Monday. I thought I might."

"Come with me."

Peter turned and led the way downstairs, taking her through to the living room where a very faint sound of raised voices was just about audible. He then turned round, grabbed her shoulders and said frantically, "I love you, honey. You know that, don't you? You're the most important, wonderful thing in my world. I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you."

"Dad, calm down," said Jessica, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sudden outburst. "Nothing happened to me."

"No, I know." Peter looked searchingly at her for several long moments before finally letting go of her shoulders and taking a step back. "You're not going to do that again, though, are you? Go into some stranger's house and accept a drink from him? Or anything else for that matter."

"Cameron's not a stranger, Dad. He's my friend."

"How can he be your friend? You've barely known him a week."

"So how long _should_ I have waited? Or am I just never supposed to trust anyone?"

Peter didn't say anything. He looked rather as though he wanted to say something, but he didn't.

"And," Jessica went on, "in case you'd forgotten, what happened to me was absolutely nothing to do with Cameron. All he did was call the ambulance, which was probably a bit of an overreaction, but he obviously meant well."

"You fainted," said Peter.

Jessica scowled. "I know."

"Why did you _do_ that? I know you, Jess - you don't faint."

"Yeah, well. I do now."

"Are you feeling all right?" He came a step closer and looked searchingly into her eyes. "You don't feel ill or anything? Sick? Dizzy? You can see ok?"

Jessica took a step back. "I feel fine."

"Really?"

"Dad, I love you, but I swear if you ask me that one more time…"

"All right, all right." Peter held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. "But we know _something_ happened to you yesterday, and since you seem ok physically, I'd like you to come with me to see Egon."

"What? Why?"

"Because I want to make sure you're really all right. There's been an incubus doing the rounds. I told you about that, didn't I?"

"Dad!" exclaimed Jessica. "Cameron's not an incubus!"

Peter, instead of arguing, said, "Please, Jess - just let Egon take a look at you. You don't want to go to school and get a detention for not doing your homework, do you?"

"What makes you think I haven't done my homework?"

"Have you?"

"Well… no."

"Well then…"

Jessica looked at him. His eyes were so pleading, like a puppy's - the previous day's events obviously had him badly shaken. He needn't be feeling this way, though. She was fine - she knew she was. But she supposed she could indulge him in this little whim.

"Tell you what," said Jessica. "I will let Egon 'look at me' if you go over to Cameron's house and apologise for accusing him of raping me."

"_What_?"

"You almost beat him up, Dad. You would have, if those two cops weren't there to restrain you."

"Jess," Peter said shakily. "When I thought he'd…" - he couldn't finish.

"But he didn't. I mean, God, talk about leaping to conclusions."

Peter sighed deeply and said, "If I go and apologise to him, you'll come with me to the firehouse?"

"I will."

He cut a glance out of the window, at the house across the street. "He might not be up yet."

"He should be - he's starting school today. Come on, let's go."

Jessica grabbed Peter's hand and practically dragged him outside. They got as far as the end of Cameron's driveway when they realised that the once faint sound of raised voices they'd been hearing was actually Cameron and his mother having a blazing row.

"Great," muttered Jessica. "There's the excuse you need not to talk to him."

"Well, I can't really interrupt a showdown like that," reasoned her father. They weren't just shouting at each other - it sounded rather like they were throwing things around the room. "I wonder if it's about what happened yesterday."

"Maybe she's mad that I dropped two thirds of a can of Coke all over the kitchen."

"Did you?"

"I must have. I was holding it when I went down."

"I'll talk to him this afternoon, Jess, I promise," said Peter. "Will you come to the firehouse with me now, please?"

"Sure," shrugged Jessica. "Why the hell not?"

Only when they turned to face the Ecto-1, still full of Winston, Roland and Egon, did Jessica actually notice it was there. She stared at it in disbelief. She simply _had not seen it_. God, was Cameron's proximity doing that to her? How pathetic of her.

"Why are they here?" she asked.

"They've been staking out the street. We had a demon here last night."

"Did we? I never heard a thing."

"It tried to get underneath Cameron's door, you know."

"Oh." Jessica furrowed her brow and gazed up at Cameron's bedroom window (she knew it was his room - she'd seen him walking around in there). "I hope he's all right."

"So you think it was a coincidence, do you?" asked Peter.

"What do you mean coincidence? It was as likely to be him as anyone else. You don't think the demon had a special reason for going there, do you? Because it can't have done. That doesn't make sense."

"Well. Let's just get you checked out at the firehouse first."

"First before…?"

"I don't know, we'll find out."

x x x

Kylie shoved a PKE meter in Eduardo's face when he tried for a quickie in the morning.

"Just checking," she said.

"Should I be worried that you don't think you could tell me apart from a demon?"

"I don't think that at all, but there's no harm in making sure. But look, we don't have time - get off me."

He did. She wasn't the kind of woman to make a token protest and undermine it with giggles of encouragement. She adored his lovemaking, but if she asked him to stop for whatever reason, she meant it. This time the practical reason was that the girls needed to be roused from sleep, fed and dressed, and Conchita needed to be taken to school. But as well as this, Kylie was feeling slightly guilty. She had spent half the night persuading Eduardo to make love over and over again (he was only too happy to oblige) so that she could prove to herself she really loved him and wanted him. And she did. She really did. But she had known that already. It didn't need confirming, and she felt awful for not being able to dismiss the needless worry from her mind without seeking proof.

Kylie climbed out of bed, went to the bathroom and then came back and started to dress. While she was doing this Eduardo came to stand behind her and started kissing her neck. He did that sometimes, especially if they'd had a good night. It was a habit that could be very nice, but equally it could be intensely irritating. It depended very much on the time of day, Kylie's general mood and whether she was trying to do something else.

"We'll have to take Rose with us today," she said. "Not that I enjoy offloading her onto our relatives, but we couldn't even if we wanted to. Dad's working, and Carl's taken the whole week off but he and Beth are going to see their sex therapist this afternoon."

Wow. Amazing. Eduardo suddenly went from being right behind her to being on totally the other side of the room.

"Oh shit, I shouldn't have told you that," Kylie realised.

"No." He sounded like he might be about to throw up. "You shouldn't."

"Oh, come on." She turned to face him. He was sitting on the foot of the bed, looking every bit as nauseous as he sounded. "How do you think Kevin happened?"

Eduardo shook his head. "Just don't."

"Look, Beth told me that in confidence. Don't mention it to anyone. And especially don't turn round and accuse Carl of being crap in bed next time you have a fight."

"Do chicks - sorry - women really tell each other that stuff?"

"She didn't go into detail. And don't worry - I haven't told anybody anything about your bedroom habits."

His libido well and truly sapped, Eduardo raced through his usual early morning routine and then went to wake his daughters while Kylie buried her face in makeup. He made Conchita and Rose breakfast, and the latter very nearly fell asleep as she ate. Rose was always slow to wake up, bless her, but she'd managed it by the time they had walked Conchita to school (Rose had the luxury of being pushed) and arrived at the firehouse.

Jessica was leaning against the Ecto-1, looking thoroughly pissed off and watching a very furtive conversation between Egon and Peter several yards away.

"Hey." Eduardo approached her, Kylie being busy with the complicated fastenings on Rose's pushchair. "How are you feeling?"

Jessica looked at him blankly for a few moments. She was so sick of this. But there was no call for rudeness - he was just concerned - so she said, "Fine."

"Good," said Eduardo. "Only you're not at school, so I thought maybe…"

"What?"

"I thought maybe you weren't fine."

"I _am_ fine. Dad won't let me go to school. See him over there whispering with Egon?"

Eduardo nodded. He could hardly miss it.

"They're talking about all the possible demon STDs I might have caught from Cameron - I know they are."

"Who's Cameron?" asked Eduardo.

"Just some guy."

"He moved in across their street last week," offered Kylie.

"It's the week _before_ last now," Jessica corrected.

"Right, sorry."

"Right," Eduardo said slowly. "So… they think he's the reason you passed out?"

"Jesus, does everyone know about that? What happened to respecting my privacy?"

"Your dad was here when he got the call. We were all worried about you."

"Well that's very sweet and everything," Jessica said acidly, "but there was no need."

"So what were you doing with this Cameron?"

"Nothing."

"So why would they think -?"

"Is this any of your business?"

"I'm sorry," said Eduardo. "I'm just a bit worried because…" - he tailed off.

"Because what?" challenged Jessica. "Because you think I'm stupid and I can't take care of myself? I'm exactly the kind of person who gets herself drugged and raped?"

Kylie ushered Rose away from the somewhat heated conversation and took her upstairs.

"Jess, there's no 'kind of person'," Eduardo said patiently. "It can happen to anyone."

"Oh, I see - you know better than me because your brother's a cop."

"That's not what I'm saying. Well… not exactly… but I _do_ hear a lot of very unpleasant stories. Five years ago a girl about your age went into a friend's house and was never seen again. The cops searched the whole house, took up the floorboards, all that stuff - she'd completely vanished. And when they _do_ get found… well, there was this one girl whose body showed up in a dumpster. She was gang-raped, and then sealed inside the thing and it was set on fire - it was horrible. And some live to tell the tale. One girl got raped a while ago by somebody she thought was her friend, which is extremely common - and when you know the guy it's not always easy to get a conviction, which can be very stressful. But anyway, she got pregnant and had a backstreet abortion because she was underage, broke and didn't want to have to tell her parents or any kind of authorities what had happened to her. The only reason anybody found out about it was because she started bleeding all over a math lesson. She almost died. And last year there was - "

"Oh, stop. I know about that kind of stuff - you don't have to tell me."

"Everyone knows about it. But it still happens. You have to be _so_ careful."

"So," said Jessica, "this girl thought the guy was her friend. She couldn't have known he was going to do that. What could she have possibly done to stop it?"

Eduardo shook his head slightly. "Pass."

"So it's no good lecturing me. Statistically you're most likely to be murdered on Christmas day by a member of your family. Did you know that? Everything's a risk. Crossing the street is a risk. You can't just never go anywhere or talk to anyone."

"Well," said Eduardo, "there's risks and there's unnecessary risks. If you've only known this kid a week…"

Jessica sighed. "Please stop being sensible - it doesn't suit you."

"Look, I'm sorry. I am. I don't like sounding like my dad. But it would just be too terrible if anything happened to you."

"Jessica."

Jessica turned her head and saw that Egon was looking straight at her, with Peter hovering behind him.

"I'm ready for you now."

"You sound like my GP," she said, as she walked towards him.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't sweat it."

He took her to his lab and asked her very politely to sit down. It was _just_ like a regular doctor's appointment. Ok, so he was a doctor, but he was a friend first and foremost and Jessica was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

Egon sat down opposite her. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel fine. Can I borrow a pen? I'd like to write it on my forehead."

"Everything seems to be functioning all right? You've been eating, sleeping, passing water, all those kinds of things, normally?"

"Yes."

"No problems with your menstrual cycle? It's all right if it's a bit irregular - you are only young, after all - but if there's been any - "

"It's fine, Egon, it's all fine."

"Right." Egon stood up, produced a small torch from a drawer and then crouched down next to her. "I'm just going to look in your eyes, all right?"

"Must you?"

"I just want to make sure you're in good physical health."

She didn't like it, largely because she knew her own body and she knew she was absolutely fine, but Jessica let Egon shine his little torch in her eyes (she hated that, as does everyone) and feel her glands and all that kind of stuff. If she'd known that this was what was going to happen, she would rather have let Peter take her to her regular doctor. She didn't like the guy much, but Egon doing all this kind of stuff just felt weird.

"All right." He was finished in under two minutes, at which point he sat down on his desk and whipped out a PKE meter. "Tell me what time you had your strange turn."

"About three thirty."

"Yesterday afternoon."

"Yes."

"Well," said Egon, "if it _was_ something paranormal, all trace of it has now gone."

"It wasn't," Jessica said, through gritted teeth, "something paranormal."

"Oh? Then why did you faint?"

"Maybe the gas was leaking. How should I know?"

"I want you to tell me everything that happened yesterday when you went to see Cameron," Egon said levelly. "And don't miss anything out. Nothing you say to me in confidence will leave this room."

Jessica raised her eyebrows. "What do you think I did, Egon?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

"Well I'll tell you. Cameron's mother went out. I went over to see Cameron. He was sitting on the front porch. He invited me in. I _went_ in. He gave me a Coke."

"A Coke from…?"

"From the fridge. In the kitchen. Ok?"

"Yes. Please continue."

"He talked to me. I answered him a couple of times, but I was feeling drowsy so I couldn't talk much, and then everything went black and I woke up in hospital."

"That's it?" asked Egon.

"That's it," Jessica said firmly.

"Hmm, well… Peter asked me to check that you're all right, and you are. But this all seems very strange. Did you know the incubus went to your road last night?"

"Yeah, Dad told me."

"It tried to enter Cameron's house."

"He told me that too. It probably wanted to screw his mother."

"I don't like this, Jessica. I think you're in danger from him."

"From Cameron? Jesus, what is it with you people? Oscar thinks the guy's a pervert, Dad thinks he's an incubus, Eduardo thinks he's a serial rapist and you think he's… what, exactly?"

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out."

"What? Hey, where are you going?" Jessica cried in alarm, bolting after Egon as he strode towards the door.

"I'm going to see Cameron."

"But…" She had to follow him as he kept on walking. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I realise that Cameron might not be the problem. It might be his mother, or someone or something else entirely - but whatever it is, it's with them, in their house. While you were there, did you notice anything… unusual?"

"I didn't notice very much of anything, to be honest with you. But look… this is crazy. You're wasting your time. Cameron is no more a demon than I am."

"And his mother? Peter tells me she's very reclusive."

"Well, maybe a bit. But she went out yesterday. Look, please don't - "

"I saw her briefly last night," Egon said, as they entered the reception area where Peter was waiting for them and Janine was tapping importantly at her computer keyboard some yards away. "Roland talked to her - he's sure she knows more than she's letting on."

"Yeah, well, what does Roland know?" Jessica demanded irritably.

"Oh, good, there you are," said Peter, approaching them and putting his arm around his daughter. "Is she ok?"

"She's fine," said Egon. "But now I'd like to pay another visit to this Cameron person and his mother."

"Oh, right, ok." Peter looked suspicious. "Why? What did he do to her?"

"Possibly nothing," said Egon. "But I'm interested in him. He, or his mother, could be key."

"To what?" demanded Jessica. "The incubus case? You're absolutely insane, Egon."

"Right, well, I'll go with you," said Peter.

"Me too," added Jessica.

Egon looked at her sternly. "I think that would be extraordinarily unwise."

"_I_ don't. Someone has to make sure you don't fry him in a proton stream."

"We won't," said Peter. "Not unless he's, you know, a demon or something."

"A _malevolent_ demon," Egon elaborated. "Does that satisfy you?"

"Not really." Jessica looked at her father. "Do you remember you promised me you'd apologise to him?"

"Um," said Peter. "I suppose that sounds like something I might have said."

"Well now seems like a good opportunity to see it through. _If_ you can find him. He's supposed to be starting school today, remember."

"Really?" said Egon. "Where does he go to school?"

"I don't know."

"Well, his mother will. Janine." Egon approached Janine's desk. "Venkman and I are going to investigate a potentially dangerous paranormal phenomenon."

"Cameron is _not_ a potentially dangerous paranormal phenomenon!" shrieked Jessica.

"We may need backup. Garrett's not working this morning, is he? But can you warn the others? And tell Roland we'll refund his gas," he added. "We're taking the Ecto-1."

"You can take my car if you like," Janine said generously.

"Thank you, but we may need some special equipment that your car doesn't have. I don't know when we'll be back."

"Right," said Janine. "Bye. I love you!" as he headed for the locker containing his jumpsuit. "Hey! What's that face for?"

"Oh, I'm sorry." Jessica looked up. "Was I making a face?"

"Goodbye, honey." Peter came back from his equipment locker and kissed her, looking slightly hurt when she ducked away from him. "Look, I really am sorry about all of this, but it's only because I love you."

"You're not sorry. You _never_ liked him."

Peter sighed. "Look. We'll have this conversation later, after we've seen Cameron."

He waited a few moments, but Jessica said nothing, so he climbed into the driver's seat of the Ecto-1. Egon had already got into the passenger's seat. Peter knew the drive better than most, after all.

"Jessica," said Janine. "Come over here."

"Why?"

"I want to talk to you."

"You're supposed to be working," Jessica said, but she went over anyway. "And what could you possibly want to talk to me about? Cameron, possibly? How he's bad news and I should stay away from him? How I was stupid to go into his house with him and I'm lucky I wasn't raped and then thrown into a dumpster and burnt?"

"No," said Janine.

"You want to talk about him, though, don't you?"

"I thought maybe you - "

"Oh my _God_!" Jessica exclaimed suddenly. "Why does everybody have to be so damn interfering? Don't you people have your own problems? Why are the whole goddamn lot of you so interested in _me_ and _my_ life?"

Janine frowned. "Because we care, maybe?"

"Well, don't. I'm stupid. I behaved like a slut. End of story."

"I didn't say that."

"Why not? You can if you want to - no skin off my nose. You'd only be saying what everybody else is thinking."

Janine stood up, walked around her desk and sat on it. She wanted to be physically closer to Jessica, and more or less on the same eye level. Those things generally helped with conversations such as this. Then she said, "No one thinks you're stupid."

"They do. Not that it matters. I don't care what anybody else thinks."

"I know you don't," Janine said dryly. "Now listen. It's perfectly natural to be interested in boys. You just have to be a bit careful with them. See, Jess." _So I'm having this talk with her after all, _she thought._ I'm too good._ "The trouble with guys and relationships and stuff is that you go in completely blind. You never know when one is going to turn out to be a complete disaster. That's why you have to tread carefully - you don't want to rush into anything and then find out you've made a mistake."

"You're talking about sex, aren't you?" Jessica said challengingly.

Janine shrugged. "Not necessarily."

"Yeah, well, I only had a Coke with Cameron. As in Coca-Cola, obviously. I'm not going to sleep with him, and I'm _definitely_ not going to marry him. _That's_ what you meant, isn't it? You were talking about when you married Louis Tully."

"Well, not that specifically, but it _was_ a mistake."

"Yuh-huh, well, you don't have to worry about me doing a stupid thing like that. I'm never getting married."

"Yes, you've told me that before. So what'll happen if you fall in love?"

Jessica snorted derisively.

"You might," Janine pressed. "You're obviously not immune to these things."

"Look," said Jessica. "I like hanging out with Cameron. It's fun. _He's_ fun. But marriage… that's something else. All that living in each other's pockets and knowing each other inside out and being co-dependent - it all sounds very claustrophobic to me."

Janine shook her head incredulously. "You are _so_ like your father."

"He married," Jessica pointed out.

"He got over his commitment phobia, and so will you - I bet you anything. One day you're going to meet somebody wonderful, and you're going to fall in love with him, and you're going to ache every second he isn't by your side."

Jessica gave her a withering look. "Shut up."

"So what are you going to do? Play the field? Hump 'em and dump 'em?"

"Janine, I'm thirteen - how can I know?"

"Yeah, you're right," said Janine. "You're much to young to know about these things. Some would say you're even too young to have your first boyfriend."

"Would they?" Jessica couldn't help smiling slightly. "Well, we'd better not tell those people that Cameron wouldn't be my first."

"He wouldn't?"

"No."

"You mean you've had a boyfriend before? A _proper_ boyfriend?"

"Well," said Jessica, "it depends what you mean by a 'proper' boyfriend. It only lasted a couple of weeks, but there was quite a lot of chaste touching, and he kissed me a couple of times. First base - that's as far as we got. He wanted a bit more than that, but astonishingly I _can_ control myself around guys. But anyway, it was nice, until he turned out to be lying piece of scum."

"Wow," said Janine, visibly stunned by this news. "I had absolutely no idea. When was this?"

"Just over a year ago, when I started junior high."

"So you were only twelve?"

"'Fraid so. Look, only Charlene knows about him, so…"

"All right, the secret's safe with me. Who was he?"

"Just some guy from school." It was true enough - Will had lived in the school basement. Up until Egon killed him with a stake through the heart, that is. "No one you know."

"What happened to him? Is he still around?"

"No, he's gone."

"Gone?" echoed Janine. "Gone where?"

"Just gone. And I was stupid with him - I admit it, ok? But I learned my lesson, which is why I am never ever going to do anything like that ever again."

Anything like what? She opted not to ask, saying instead, "Yeah? So what's Cameron?"

"Absolutely nothing like Will."

"Are you sure about that?"

"He couldn't possibly be." For one thing he'd been outside in pure daylight a few times and not once burst into flames.

"Right," said Janine, sensing something ominous there, but she didn't push. "Look… Jess… I know it's not easy to talk about - you know - _stuff_, especially with your parents. So if you ever want to ask me anything or tell me anything… well, you can."

"Really?" Jessica was very relieved to hear this. At last, an outlet for all those burning questions. "I can?"

"Sure. I'll do my best, anyway. I'll need the practice for when Eden's going through it."

"Eden? I don't think so. She'll just read about all that in a textbook."

"You can't read about love and relationships and… and…"

"Sex."

"…in a textbook. Well, you _can_, some of it - but the mechanics and the reality of it aren't the same thing," Janine said sagely. "And even Spenglers get to realise that - "

"Janine, please!" Jessica hastily interrupted. "I don't want to hear about that."

"Right. Sorry."

x x x

"Not that I'm complaining," said Egon, "but you're remarkably quiet."

Peter stared rigidly at the road (as of course he should). "She hates me."

"She doesn't hate you."

"I just didn't see this coming, Egon. After she was born I didn't know how I'd cope with raising a girl - I don't understand girls - but then she started trying to be just like Oscar and it was kind of like having two sons. So I got complacent. I thought, _I can handle her_, and I didn't think about what would happen when she started to grow up. It's true, you know - girls _do_ mature faster than boys. That's why my eighteen-year-old son and my thirteen-year-old daughter both like sixteen year olds. Things were so much less complicated when Oscar was about six and Jess was a baby. They were so cute! I wish it could be nineteen ninety-four forever."

Egon gave him a cock-eyed look. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. I miss Oscar."

"Of course."

This rounded off the conversation nicely for Peter to pull up outside his own house. He turned off the car, glanced out of the window and said nonchalantly, "Oh. There he is."

Cameron and his mother were both outside their house, all five doors on their car wide open, both of them lugging suitcases around. After a few seconds of brazenly watching them, Egon and Peter saw that Cameron was in actuality hauling cases out of her car as quickly as Alice was throwing them in.

Egon was momentarily stumped. Then he said incredulously, "That's him? That's the fabled Cameron? That's the boy all this fuss has been about?"

He simply could not believe it. He half expected Peter to turn round and say, "No, that's not Cameron - Cameron's over _there_," and point him in the direction of a strapping young man with neatly combed hair, a toothpaste commercial smile and something that could vaguely be construed as reasonable dress sense.

"'Fraid so," said Peter. "Apparently that's what girls are into these days."

Right. So that was the boy who had caused a pubescent girl to faint just by talking to her. _That_ one. Egon boggled inwardly at the sight. It simply made no sense. All he saw was a gangly youth with unkempt hair, faded jeans and a vastly oversized t-shirt the exact colour of a metal dustbin that had been left out in the rain a few too many times.

"You have my deepest sympathies."

"Well," said Peter, opening the car door, "we'd probably better get over there. It looks like they're trying to leave."

"_She's_ trying to leave," Egon corrected.

"Yeah, right. Maybe that's what they were fighting about this morning."

Egon treated him to a withering look. "Maybe indeed."

The sound of two car doors slamming caught Cameron's attention, and he looked terrified when Peter started walking towards him (he didn't seem to notice Egon at all). Alice took advantage of the distraction, continuing to load suitcases into the car.

"Dr. Venkman, hi," Cameron said awkwardly, twisting his fingers together out of sheer nervousness. "How's Jess?"

"She's fine," Egon and Peter chorused.

"Thank God for that. Look… I'm really sorry about what happened. I don't know what it was. If I had any idea she was going to - "

"Gas leak," Alice chimed in, loading the last of the suitcases into the car. "Nothing in that house is safe - everything leaks and we're lucky the whole place hasn't fallen down around our ears. That's why we're leaving. Goodbye."

Cameron's dark eyes narrowed. He turned suddenly on his mother and exclaimed, "We are _not_ leaving!"

"Oh yes we are." She grabbed both of his wrists and started dragging him towards the car. "Just get in the goddamn car, Cameron."

"No!" He dug his heels into the ground, as much as one _can_ dig one's heels into a tarmac driveway. "Get your hands off me, you crazy bitch!"

"Cameron! How dare you talk me like that!"

Cameron was able to wrench his hands away from his mother, and began pulling the suitcases out of the car. Egon and Peter watched, stunned, as the whole process started again in reverse: Alice throwing cases into the car as soon as Cameron took them out.

"Mother, _please_!" he wailed. "Look, we don't have to do this anymore. These guys can help us. They're Ghostbusters."

"Huh! Some good they did us last night!"

"What?" Cameron stopped, just for a moment, but began unloading the car again as soon as Alice put in another case. "They were here last night?"

"You must have been asleep."

"And was the… the… was that here too?"

"Yes," said Alice. "It's found us. That's why we have to move on."

"Excuse me, Ms. Doherty," ventured Egon. "Your son is right - we really can help you. _If_ there's a demon after you. That's correct, isn't it?"

"Listen," said Cameron. "It's been after us for… for… ever. She's been moving us around the country my whole life, but it never found us this quickly before. She moved us to Oklahoma when I was four - it took it more than three years to find us. In Tennessee and then Pennsylvania it took two. We just came from Utah - we were only there two months. We've been here just over a week and it's already found us. Mom!" as she grabbed hold of his wrists again. "Aren't you listening to me? It'll follow us! It'll find us in less than a week! MOTHER!"

She had caught him off guard this time, and was able to wrestle him into the car. As soon as she slammed the door Cameron started to open it again. She stood firmly in front of it, pushing her weight against it, and Cameron began clambering over to the driver's side door.

Alice scowled at Peter and said, "You know why he wants to stay, don't you! It's that daughter of yours!"

"Sure, she's part of it." Cameron was out of the car now. "But that's not all it is. All that stuff I just said, Mom - I'm right! Don't you see? If it came here last night…"

"It didn't come in." Alice was moving round to the other side of the car, ready to start manhandling her son again. "I know how to protect us from it."

"Really?" Egon looked towards the house with interest. "What have you got in there?"

"Just charms and stuff," Alice said dismissively, struggling to bundle Cameron into the car a second time. "Crucifixes, baby animal blood, stuff like that."

"_Baby animal blood_?" boggled Cameron. "You never told me that!"

"It hates that kind of stuff. Well, it seems to discourage it anyway."

"But not for long," panted Cameron, beginning to tire from all this physical activity. "It always gets into the house in the end. When we left the last place we had to jump from an upstairs window! Don't you remember?"

"Of course I remember."

"Ms. Doherty, stop," pleaded Egon. "We can help you - we really can. Why is the demon following you?"

"Because it's a goddamn demon! How the hell should I know?"

"Cameron, why is it following you?"

Cameron shook his head despairingly. "I don't know. I swear I don't know."

"No?" Peter, who had been ominously quiet through all of this, was now studying his PKE meter. "Well I don't believe this crock about a demon following you. You _are_ the demon!"

"What? _Whoa_!" exclaimed Cameron, instinctively stopping the struggle against his mother's assault as a proton gun was levelled on his chest. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"Peter," said Egon.

"Stand aside, Ms. Doherty. I understand that you want to protect your son, but he's a dangerous demon and I think you know it."

"Peter," Egon said levelly. He placed a hand on the barrel of Peter's gun and lowered it gently. "I don't think we should be shooting Cameron."

"_What_?" squeaked Peter. "Why the hell not? Jesus Christ, Egon - look at the goddamn meter! The kid's a demon!"

"We don't know that he's a threat."

"Of course he's a - "

There came the sound of a car door slamming, an engine revving, a screech of tyres and then suddenly the car, Alice and Cameron were all gone.

"Oh shit!" exclaimed Peter, heading straight for the Ecto-1 at a sprint. "You should have let me shoot him, Egon!"

"I'll tell you why I didn't later, Peter," Egon said levelly, clambering into the driver's seat. "In the meantime, I think I'm in more of a state to drive than you are. Would you do me a favour? Radio HQ and tell them we're on the move."

Shaking his head - he didn't know why, it did less than nothing to help his state of mind - Peter picked up the car's two-way radio.

"Thank you."

x x x

Jessica, following her fascinating talk with Janine (those sex education videos at school really did strip it down to the bare bones), had spent the rest of the morning doing her homework. It only seemed sensible. She was definitely going back to school the next day, no matter what anybody said.

There were few things that Jessica found less mentally stimulating than subatomic particles (she was seriously thinking of letting the twins do the whole thing for her when they came home from school), besides which the atmosphere made it hard to concentrate. Roland, Kylie and Eduardo were all there (Garrett still working his shift at the hospital), fidgeting impatiently, all ready to speed to Egon and Peter's rescue. Rose was there too, flicking through a book titled _I Am Round_ with Kylie (it was probably beneath her, Jessica thought - Rose knew a circle or a sphere when she saw one). Kylie looked poised to throw the child from her lap as soon as the request for backup came in.

"So how long since they last checked in?" asked Jessica.

"Um." Roland glanced at his watch, and winced. "Almost an hour."

"An _hour_?"

That was it, then. There were more important things than subatomic particles. Well, ok, possibly there weren't, technically speaking - but there were certainly more important things than drawing endless diagrams of them. Jessica abandoned her number two pencil and marched downstairs to reception.

"Janine!"

Janine looked up, startled. "Must you shout at me like that?"

"Sorry. Look, have you heard anything yet?"

"No. I was just going to try contacting them."

"Oh, good idea," Jessica said sarcastically.

Scowling slightly, Janine made her way over to Egon's desk. "Why aren't you at school anyway? Egon said you're fine - you could have gone in for the afternoon."

"Hey, don't ask me. I've been telling the whole damn lot of you I'm fine all morning."

Janine picked up the two-way radio on the desk and spoke frantically to it. "Egon? What the hell are you doing out there? Talk to me, damn you!"

She jumped out of her skin when an unfamiliar voice answered, "Er, hi."

"What?" exclaimed Janine. "Who the hell are you?"

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

_Extreme Ghostbusters: _**The Trouble With Guys**

Part 3

Cameron Doherty had been running all his life. But only because he was dragged. He had never been allowed to have a real friend. It wasn't until he was eight years old that he had convinced his mother even to let him go to school. She had done a good job of teaching him at home, it seemed - good enough so that he wasn't drastically behind the other students. But even then he wasn't really allowed to have friends. His mother hardly ever let him go out, and when she did he wasn't allowed beyond his own front yard. The first time that thing had tried to come into their house he had finally understood, to a degree, why he was so cosseted. He had only been nine at the time. It didn't occur to him to ask _why_ the demon was following them.

"Mom," said Cameron, as they sped onto the Brooklyn Bridge. "Mom, please, I really think those guys can help us."

Alice shook her head firmly. "They can't."

"They're Ghostbusters."

"Trust me, Cameron, you do _not_ want to get into a conversation about this with any Ghostbusters." She glanced at the rear-view mirror. "Are they still following us?"

Cameron twisted in his seat. The extremely conspicuous converted hearse was a little way behind them now, trying to nudge its way past all the other cars on the bridge.

"Of course they're still following us. _Why_ don't I?"

"Oh come on, Cameron - isn't it obvious? They might not see you as the victim here. Don't you remember all the things you've done over the years? That boy who collapsed off the climbing frame? The fire in the gymnasium?"

"You said none of that was my fault."

"And that girl in our kitchen… What the hell were you _thinking_?"

"Her name is Jessica," Cameron said tartly. "And I still don't understand what happened to her. I never would have done anything like that on purpose."

Alice sighed, her knuckles blanching on the steering wheel. "No, honey, I know you wouldn't."

"So why did it happen? You know more about me and all the shit that happens to me than you've been letting on, don't you? You know why this demon's so interested in us."

"In _you_, Cameron. He doesn't care about me."

"Well? Tell me!"

"Oh, honey. You could probably figure it out if you really wanted to."

Cameron shook his head. It had never made sense to him and it still didn't. He decided to change tack, saying beseechingly, "Mom, it'll find us. It's probably following us right now. Please just stop the car and let's talk to those Ghostbusters back there."

"We're in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, Cameron - I can't just stop the car."

"And when we get off the bridge?" bristled Cameron. "Then what?"

"Cameron…"

"Mother, will you stop the goddamn car!"

The car stopped. Just like that. The engine gave out with a short, sharp fizzle and steam started to rise from under the hood.

Alice took her hands off the steering wheel and gestured to the windscreen in despair. "Cameron!"

"Oh." Cameron's jaw dropped. "Sorry."

Alice swivelled in her seat, wondering why no other cars had crashed into hers yet and why no impatient motorists were hooting at her. She half expected to see a huge pileup surrounding her car. What she saw, however, was that every other car on the bridge had stopped as well.

Cameron shook his head incredulously. "I couldn't have done that."

Alice gave no answer, and Cameron turned to look at her. He saw at once that she was slumped back in the seat, her eyes closed and her mouth hanging open slightly. Starting to panic, Cameron put a hand in front of his mother's mouth, and sighed deeply when he felt warm breath against his skin. He also noticed a pulse beating steadily in her neck.

After diagnosing Alice as being still alive, Cameron's next instinct was to climb out of the car. He looked around him at the stationary vehicles. As ever, all kinds of people were using the bridge: truckers, boy racers in sports cars, families in people carriers - there was even a hearse taking someone to be buried or cremated in Manhattan. And they were all asleep - every driver and every passenger. At least Cameron _hoped_ they were asleep, and not in a similar state to whoever was in the back of that hearse.

Speaking of hearses… Cameron looked around, and saw that the Ecto-1 was - of course - still some two hundred-odd yards away. Not that there was much chance of the occupants of the car being awake (they would have got out by now, surely), but apparently it was the closest thing around there to help. Cameron started to run.

Straight into an invisible wall.

"What the…?"

He swung round. And then he saw it. The demon. The one that had been chasing him all this time. It was perhaps twice the size of an average man, only semi-visible and hovering above the bridge on an impressive wingspan. Cameron was suddenly terrified. Whatever courage he'd been able to muster left him just like that. He stood and gaped.

Well? The voice was in his head. Yikes.

"W-w-w-well what?"

We meet at last. It sounded a bit like James Earl Jones. _You are very good at hiding._

It sounded a bit like James Earl Jones. 

"Yeah, sure," said Cameron. He hardly dared ask the question, but then again he didn't really want to beat about the bush. "What do you want with me?"

You don't know?

"No."

Cameron. I am your father.

He burst out laughing. He just couldn't help it. Then his face rearranged itself into an expression of sheer panic and he said, "Shit, that's not funny!"

What do I want, you ask? I want you to teach you how to use your powers.

"What if I said no?" Cameron asked cautiously.

There is no choice. Your mother has bent you to her will these last fifteen years.

"Sixteen," he couldn't help saying. "I'm sixteen next month."

Now it is my turn.

"Hey, no way." Cameron started to back away. He had only one thing on his mind now: reaching that goddamn Ghostbuster car. "I don't have any powers."

You do.

"So what am I supposed to do with them?"

Why, fornicate, of course.

Cameron pulled a face.

Come with me. I will show you.

Suddenly he felt himself literally being lifted off the ground and dragged laboriously towards the demon. He started to struggle, screwing his eyes shut as he tried to block out his surroundings and break free of the invisible net.

"Let me go!"

That, by some stroke of extremely good luck, did it. The demon cried out, and Cameron landed on the ground with a moderately painful bump. He opened his eyes wide, just in time to see the demon make an impressive back flip into the water below them. Knowing he couldn't miss the opportunity, Cameron ran.

As predicted, Dr. Venkman (oh yeah, way to impress the potential girlfriend's father) and his friend (Cameron decided he would find out the guy's name if he came out of this the other side) were as sound asleep as everyone else on the bridge. But there was a faint sound coming from inside the car. Cameron pulled open the passenger side door, and realised that it was the two-way radio.

"Egon? What the hell are you doing out there? Talk to me, damn you!" came a high-pitched Brooklyn accent.

Cameron picked up the radio and wondered what to say, quickly settling for, "Er, hi."

"What?" the voice came back to him. "Who the hell are you?"

"I - "

He heard another voice in the background, a faint scuffling noise, a short burst of static and then a new voice said incredulously: "Cameron, is that you?"

Cameron blinked. "Jess?"

"Hey, it _is _you! Cool! Cameron, listen, is my dad there?"

"Er, yeah, he's right here."

"How is he?"

"Oh, he's fine. Absolutely fine. He's asleep."

"He's _what_?"

The Brooklyn-accented woman spoke next: "So you're Cameron, huh? You've caused an awful lot of trouble, you know. What's going on out there?"

"Oh God, I don't know. This demon - "

A new voice interrupted him: "Hi, Cameron. My name's Kylie."

"Hi, Kylie," Cameron said robotically.

"Ok, now tell us what's going on."

"I'm on the Brooklyn Bridge. There's a demon here. It's sent everybody to sleep. Except me. It says it's my father."

"It's _what_?" Kylie sounded immensely put out by this news. "What else did it say?"

"It said… um… something about teaching me to use my 'powers'."

"Well that makes absolutely no sense. Why would an incubus care about -?"

"Maybe it's not an incubus," Jessica's voice was just audible.

"I think I've thrown it off the bridge somehow," Cameron ploughed on. "It doesn't seem to have come back up yet."

"Cameron, that's brilliant!" It was Jessica again now. "You're so clever! Hey, maybe you can break the spell and wake up my dad and Egon!"

"Oh, Jess, I don't know about - "

"Of course you can! You're half demon!"

"Apparently so," said Cameron. "But _he's_ all demon."

"Cameron." That sounded like the woman calling herself Kylie. "It sounds like you're doing pretty well. A team is going to come out there and help you - just try to hold him off as best you can."

"But if you guys come out here, won't the demon just -?"

The radio was blasted out of his hand. Cameron jumped up from his crouching position and spun round, expecting to see the same entity as before hovering over him. But he didn't. It was a man, hollow-eyed and pale, wearing a formal looking tailored suit. Cameron eyed him warily.

"It's me." It spoke in the same voice, this time moving its lips.

"Where did you get that body?"

"Hearse."

"Oh, eww!" Cameron stumbled backwards until he was pressed up against the Ecto-1.

"You are fortunate," the incubus continued. "Your mother passed on to you a body of flesh and bone. A beating heart. And I, my powers of seduction."

"Yeah," muttered Cameron. It didn't really explain the fire and the kid on the climbing frame, but it made some sort of sense where the Jessica incident was concerned. "Could come in handy."

"So you will come with me?"

Cameron shook his head. He slid down the side of the car and took a seat on the road, saying firmly, "I like it here."

"Oh yes?" The demon raised its eyebrows, or rather the dead man's eyebrows. "What was that woman saying to you? I know that voice. She is the woman with those weapons who caught me off guard and damaged my form."

"Well you were probably trying to seduce her. It serves you right."

"They like it," said the incubus. "More often than not." It sat down opposite Cameron. "We can talk here if you like."

"She said you're an incubus. Are you?"

"Yes."

"I thought incubuses killed women after sleeping with them."

The incubus nodded. "I have that power. I hardly ever do it, though, and certainly not deliberately. I'm not so bad."

"So my mother was one of your victims."

"Clever boy."

"And you've been following me all this time," said Cameron, no longer hesitating. He wanted to stall the demon until help arrived, but perhaps more than that he just wanted to _know_. "Why bother?"

"You are of use to me."

"How?"

"You have that effect on women too. The draining effect. Or you could have, if you would learn to control it. But you have a beating heart, as I say. You don't need to take any of their life force. So where do you think it goes?"

"Something tells me you're not going to say they get to keep it."

The incubus smiled. "No. It bleeds straight into me."

"Right." Cameron nodded slowly. "I see. And you know this, do you? Even though I'm still a virgin?" He didn't add that he'd never even so much as kissed a girl before.

"Well," the demon said, "you can take a little, possibly even without so much as touching them. I felt it the moment your mother first put you to her breast."

"Mom breast-fed me for a year. Was I draining her life force?" Cameron asked, alarmed.

"Oh, hardly. But I felt something. And now it's getting stronger. There's a girl, isn't there? When you were with her yesterday, I could feel exactly where you were. I saw her leaving your house in an ambulance. What happened?"

"She fainted."

"Ah yes, I see. She seems an odd choice, when you can have any woman you want. Not ugly, but not exactly what you might call pretty either. She'll have a beautiful body, though, when she is fully grown. How old is she? Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"I don't know."

"Did you touch her?"

"No."

The incubus's eyes shone. "Then imagine how much of her life energy you would have bled into me if you had. Why didn't you?"

"Because," Cameron said slowly, "she was unconscious and anyway I wouldn't try to do _that_ with her even if she was awake because even though I don't know how old she is I think she's a way off eighteen."

"Is that the age of consent here?"

"Yes."

"Five hundred years ago I seduced brides of fourteen," the demon said wistfully. "These laws… who makes them? Many women are sexually mature at eleven or twelve. Some are emotionally ready at thirteen, others at thirty. It's far more personal and individual than something like theft or murder - hardly something to make a universal law about."

"I set fire to a gym," said Cameron, eager to get off the subject of seducing underage girls. "When I was ten. By accident. Just by looking at it. Why is that?"

"Was this gym causing you distress?"

"Well, sort of. I hated my gym teacher. It got us out of the lesson."

"You have a lot of power, in spite of being half human. You have many problems with controlling it, but I can teach you how to channel all of it into manipulating women to make them your lovers."

Cameron raised his eyebrows. "That's terrible."

"I mean no one harm, Cameron. Most women adore the feel of me inside them, and they suffer no permanent ill-effects. Look at your mother. She is quite well."

"It's rape."

"How can it be rape when a woman cries out with delight? I am better for many of them, you know - for the ones whose husbands are selfish or ignorant. You could be too."

Cameron was a teenage boy, and just for a moment there it sounded good. He hadn't much experience with girls, largely due to his mother forcing him to live like a hermit his whole life. He had often noticed girls, however, in recent years. But last time, of course, his (entirely innocent) designs on one Jessica Venkman had very nearly got him arrested. It would probably be wise not to invite that kind of trouble again.

"When you said I had no choice…"

"I'm not going to go away. You'll give in. Come." The incubus rose to his feet. "I am not a fool. I know the ashen-faced woman is on her way here to help you."

"I want to stay," said Cameron. "I don't want to leave Mom. What can, um… Kylie do to you anyway?"

"She has those weapons."

"You're scared of her."

The incubus bristled visibly. "I am scared of no woman."

"Well then. Sit down. Tell me more about myself. Mom never told me about you."

"I gathered as much." It sat down again, first glancing over its shoulder. "Yet when I revealed to you who I was you didn't seem altogether surprised."

"I wasn't. Well, I was, but nothing surprises me _that _much anymore. I've had a demon following me my whole life. I apparently have magical powers. Why shouldn't the same demon that's been following me be my father?"

x x x

Jessica had absolutely insisted on going along, and so had Janine. Jessica was therefore particularly put out when Janine was handed a jumpsuit and a proton pack and she herself was left behind with Eduardo and Rose. Janine left Eduardo her car keys with which to do the school run - Conchita and the twins would have to be picked up. Then she, Kylie and Roland set off in Roland's Mustang.

"That's amazing," said Kylie, when they arrived at the bridge. "When we've been here before and all the cars were stopped there were at least a few people running around and screaming, but now it's like the whole place has died."

Roland stopped the car, knowing there was absolutely no point in trying to weave through all those stationary vehicles.

"So what else have you done here?" asked Janine. "Akira, those things that ate metal…"

"Trolls," Roland provided.

Janine nodded. "Of course. Look, there's the Ecto-1." She pointed to where the sirens were visible above an ostentatious little silver sports car. "So where's this Cameron?"

"Let's go look for him," Kylie said simply.

The armed trio started to manoeuvre their way around all the cars, vans, trucks and whatever else was on the bridge, occasionally glancing inside to marvel at the people all sitting there, sound asleep. At one point Roland stopped to sneak a look at a car engine.

"I don't believe this," he said quietly. "If the engines all look like these, we'll need several dozen mechanics to get these things moving again."

"Never mind that now," hissed Kylie. "Look."

Jessica would have been furious if she knew how quickly Janine lost her composure (because of course _she_ would never do that - they should have taken her along instead). Janine ran over to the Ecto-1 and fell in at the passenger door, which was open beside Cameron, exclaiming, "Egon! Wake up! What's the matter with you? Don't do this to me again! I love you!"

"Um, look," said Cameron, getting quickly to his feet. "You're a Ghostbuster, right? The incubus is just - "

"I told you," the incubus interrupted in low tones. "They can't do anything to me. Now. Let this be your first lesson. You can have that one."

Cameron followed the demon's pointing finger. It was directed at Kylie, who was staring down at the ground in utter dismay and disbelief. Cameron took a few cautious steps forward until Roland's unconscious form came into view between the hearse (with a now open coffin inside it) and a people carrier filled with two parents and their six children.

"Cameron?" Kylie caught sight of the anxious looking teenager, and jogged over to him. "Hi. I'm Kylie. We talked over the radio."

Cameron nodded. "I remember."

"Are you all right? Did it hurt you?"

"No. But I think he's about to seduce your friend."

"Right." Kylie readied her proton gun. "He got away from me last time, I'm afraid. I guess I'll just have to… oh I don't believe this!"

"What?" demanded Cameron, beginning to panic when he saw that Kylie had lowered her proton pistol and was now just gaping. "What's wrong?"

"Cameron." She grabbed his arm, not taking her eyes from the scene before her. "Tell me what that incubus looks like to you."

"Um." Cameron looked. "Oh my God! That's the blond guy in the car!"

"Right." Kylie nodded slowly. "Right, well, knowing you can see him too makes me feel a _little_ better."

"Well, good, I'm glad," Cameron said, clearly flustered. "But don't you think maybe you ought to do something? Because it kind of looks like he's about to screw your friend."

He wasn't wrong. Janine was practically unconscious, slumped in the arms of the incubus, who was drawing her in for a kiss. Kylie took careful aim (it wouldn't do to kill or permanently maim Janine, after all) and sent a blast of proton fire at the demon's ankle. It cried out, letting Janine fall to the ground.

"Ooh." Kylie winced. "I hope that didn't hurt her. Go help her, Cameron."

"Right, ok," Cameron said uncertainly. "What's her name?"

"Janine."

Cameron ventured over to where Janine lay on the road, looking pretty much unconscious now. He shook her gently by the shoulders and said, "Janine? Can you hear me?"

The incubus was watching this scene with a look of extreme disapproval on its face. Kylie shot another blast of proton fire at it to get its attention. It worked, smacking the demon nicely on the right hand. The demon looked up, and its face broke into an unreadable smile as it started to walk towards her.

God, it still looked Egon.

"Kylie, isn't it?" It didn't sound like Egon, though. "I remember you."

Kylie levelled her proton gun on his chest. "Don't come any closer."

"Kylie, sweetheart, you seem distracted. Is there something you want to ask me?"

"Get away from me!"

"Go on, ask me."

Kylie shook her head. "Why didn't I see…?"

It raised its eyebrows. "Yes?"

It was coming closer. Taking a step back, Kylie said, "Forget it."

"Why didn't you see…? Ah, yes, I know what this is. Do you have a lover, Kylie? Is that it?" He wasn't looking much like Egon anymore. "Are you wondering why you didn't see his face when you met me before?"

"Piss off." She fired another proton stream at him, wondering how to get him out of that body and wishing a few more people were conscious.

"Well." He took the final steps that closed the distance between them, raising a hand and gently lowering her proton gun. "Perhaps he isn't the one you really want."

Kylie shook her head, pulling back slightly as he moved in to kiss her. "He is."

"Sure about that?"

His kiss was like hot, sweet syrup pouring down her throat and warming every last inch of her body. Kylie began to get the feeling of falling asleep. She tried to fight it, knowing that if she went down too the only person left awake to fight the incubus would be - yikes - Cameron. This demon was obviously very powerful; it evidently thought nothing of sending everyone on the Brooklyn Bridge to sleep. Well, why should it? It couldn't _just_ send off a whole apartment block, as it had two nights ago - it had probably used its soporific powers on entire mansions and castles and such in the more distant past.

"Don't."

It seemed as though the sound of Cameron's voice snapped her out of it, but Kylie soon realised that it must have been because the demon was distracted. It took a step back from her and turned round. Kylie moved to one side and was rewarded with a view of Cameron standing against the grey sky, his dark hair rippling in the gentle breeze and his brow furrowed with anxious determinism (or perhaps determined anxiety). He looked, well, _cute_. He wasn't quite pinup material, but he _was_ cute. Kylie thought she might have been quite taken with him herself if she was ten or fifteen years younger.

"Are you ok, Kylie?"

"Er, yeah." She was still feeling a little drowsy, but otherwise all right.

"Are you going to do something about this? Come on!" He moved over to Janine and nudged her arm with the toe of his shoe. "You people are supposed to be Ghostbusters!"

The incubus scowled. "Leave them."

"Come on, wake up!" persisted Cameron. He darted over to the Ecto-1 and started to shake Egon violently. "What's the _matter_ with you? I mean come on, what would you do if I wasn't here?"

"If you weren't here," Egon murmured sleepily, "we wouldn't have this problem."

Cameron blinked in surprise. "You know about that?"

"My PKE meter never lies. You're a cambion, aren't you?"

"I'm a what?"

"We'll discuss this later." Egon climbed out of the car. "Oh good, you appear to have weakened the incubus. Now, I'd like you to try and wake some of my colleagues."

"Did I…?"

"You broke its spell, yes," Egon said impatiently. "You have some supernatural abilities of your own which I shall discuss with you at a later date, if you so desire. But in the meantime, if you wouldn't mind…"

"Right, right." Cameron sprinted round to the other side of the car and began trying to revive Peter.

Egon went over to Kylie, and was slightly disappointed to find her doing no more than chewing her bottom lip, evidently wondering what to do.

"Look," she said, indicating the incubus, which was apparently preoccupied with trying to keep itself together. Literally. "It's losing control of the cadaver."

"Not for long," said Egon. "Well, I wouldn't think so. It's powerful. Cameron may have woken me, but he's just a boy - and look, Venkman isn't budging."

"We have to get it out of that body. Would you like me to shoot it?"

"Please."

The truth was that, deep down, Cameron didn't really _want_ to wake Peter. He was a little afraid of hearing the stay-away-from-my-daughter speech, or at best the what-are-your-intentions speech, and this hardly seemed like the time or the place. After a few seconds he just gave up, going over to Roland instead. He crouched down where the Ghostbuster was lying and shook him, gently at first but then more violently.

"Hey," he said, when Roland's eyes fluttered open. "You have to go shoot the demon."

Roland nodded, getting unsteadily to his feet. "Right, sure."

So that left Janine. Cameron didn't bother standing up; he crawled over to her and gave her a sharp nudge.

"Janine!" It took him a few seconds to remember her name, but he got there in the end. "Come on, wake up!"

Janine woke up much more suddenly than the others, sitting bolt upright with a gasp of surprise and demanding immediately, "What's going on?"

"We're still fighting the incubus." He took his hands off the ground and sat on his heels.

"Ah-ha," said Janine. "So you must be the fabled Cameron."

"Wow, no one's ever called me fabled before. To my knowledge," he added.

"Listen," Janine went on. "Do you know how old Jessica is?"

"Um, no."

"She's thirteen."

Cameron looked extremely surprised. "She is?"

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"No, no, of course not." God, he would have been better off with Peter.

"She's mature for her age, in some ways, I know," said Janine. "Maybe even mature enough that some people might forget she's only thirteen. But of course, _you_ would never forget a thing like that, would you?"

"No, never. Look, shouldn't you maybe -?"

"Are you listening to me? If you put one foot out of line where she's concerned…"

"Janine, you don't have to do this. I understand."

"…I'll do much worse to you than _he_ ever could." She indicated Peter.

"Yeah? And what about her brother?"

"Oscar isn't the violent type. He's got nothing on me."

Janine knew she should probably be helping with the whole incubus situation, but she didn't want to move until Cameron looked sufficiently scared. In truth she was a little bit concerned about some of the questions Jessica had asked her that morning. That girl was growing up too fast, and the last thing she needed was a sexually mature(ish) boyfriend to encourage her. Janine couldn't see the attraction herself, but realised that probably had something to do with the fact that she was in her mid-forties rather than her mid-teens.

The incubus, meanwhile, was having an even worse time than Cameron. When he had felt his sleep spell weakening it had thrown him, and he had been momentarily unable to sustain his form. He had been very aware of Kylie's eyes on him as the flesh on his hands and face started to sag, and he was just regaining control when the proton stream hit him. Now he had three proton streams punishing his body, and he felt the cadaver beginning to slump to the ground, leaving him behind.

"Cameron!" called Egon, as the boy was gallantly helping Janine to her feet in spite of her protestations. "Wake someone else up!"

"What?"

"Just do it," snapped Janine.

Cameron, beginning to tire of this now, made his way over to the hearse and began to shake the driver vigorously. His first instinct had been to go to his mother, but she was several yards away and this thing really needed to be wrapped up.

"WAKE UP!" yelled Cameron. "For God's sake, he's getting his ass kicked - he can't have _that_ big a hold over you anymore!"

The hearse driver's eyes snapped open and, though Cameron didn't know this, so did several other eyes that had accompanied their owners to the Brooklyn Bridge that day. The incubus was truly weak now, no doubt helped by the addition of Janine's proton fire, and it cried out as its body slipped away from it. Kylie, who could boast more near-disastrous encounters with this demon than most, breathed out heavily. Finally they had the incubus, in its demon form, caught in four proton streams. And they could trap it.

Everyone who hadn't already done so woke up. Janine threw her arms around Egon while Roland collected the incubus-filled trap. Kylie, meanwhile, was suddenly slapped in the face by a realisation.

"Hey, Egon!" she exclaimed, stepping between Egon and Janine as they pulled apart. "I finally figured it out!"

Egon gave her a quizzical look. "Oh yes?"

"The incubus can't just take on the form of the man you most desire. It has to have _seen_ your husband or lover or whatever in order to do that. That's right, isn't it?"

"Oh, well." He was obviously trying to sound tactful. "I don't think so, Kylie."

"Oh yeah? How do you know? You thought it was a psychic thing, didn't you? Mind-reading, thought manipulation - something like that. But it can't be, because Cameron saw _you_, Egon, when the incubus had a go at Janine."

"It did?" Egon looked at Janine. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," said Janine. "Did you see Egon too, Kylie?"

"Sure, sure, because it's a shape shifter. I'm right - I know I am."

"Well," said Egon, "perhaps. But it seems odd. The succubus doesn't work that way, and they're the same demon."

"The succubus is superior," said Kylie. "You know that. It's not just about sex for her like it is for him - it's about sucking the life out of the guy."

"Kind of like men and women in real life." Peter had now joined them. "So where's the demon kid? Have you blasted him yet?"

Egon frowned slightly. "He's gone to his mother, but he'll be back, and we are not going to blast him. Oh dear." He rearranged his face into one of sympathy and concern. "I get the feeling you aren't going to like this."

x x x

It was only a brief explanation that was given on the Brooklyn Bridge, and it didn't satisfy Peter. They all went back to the firehouse that afternoon, Cameron and Alice included, and it wasn't until after they had gone home that Peter sought out Egon in his lab and started quizzing him further.

"Ok," he said, "I don't get it. Kylie said that the incubus is an immaterial being."

"So it is," said Egon.

"So how could it make somebody pregnant?"

"I don't know."

Peter frowned slightly. "Is that the best you can do?"

"No," said Egon. "I've read about this phenomenon before - apparently it's possible for an incubus _or_ a succubus to have a human hybrid child - but no one seems to have offered any reason why, or how it can be done. Personally, I have a theory."

"Go on then," Peter smiled indulgently. "Let's hear it."

"Well, this can't really apply to the succubus as well, but as far as young Cameron and his father are concerned: you are aware that the incubus has to inhabit a human corpse in order to do what it does. And you're quite right, of course - a dead man can't impregnate a woman. Unless, possibly, the corpse it used for Miss Doherty was so freshly dead that it still contained live sperm."

That might just be the first time Peter had heard Egon use the word "sperm". And it sounded funny. He couldn't help smirking slightly.

"Oh Venkman, grow up," said Egon, not unkindly.

"So," Peter veered the conversation back on track; "Cameron is essentially the son of a corpse. I wonder if there's any chance _that_ will put Jess off."

"Well, I wouldn't know about that. But don't forget that Cameron appears to have some supernatural abilities - he's at least as much the incubus's child as he is the vessel's, possibly more so. It's actually rather intriguing. I hope Cameron will let me study him further - I'd like to find some evidence on him that supports my theory."

"Yeah, well, _I_ hope he moves away," said Peter. "He knows now that Jess is only thirteen, and he still flirts with her - it's completely inappropriate."

"Well, I wouldn't worry too much. Until Cameron learns to control his abilities, there isn't much danger of it getting… you know… physical."

Peter suddenly looked concerned. "Suppose it does," he said, furrowing his brow. "Would she be in any danger?"

"Perhaps," said Egon. "Just a little. But it won't come to that."

x x x

"Hey." Charlene, having left both of her parents downstairs with Peter and Dana, strolled into Jessica's bedroom. "You weren't at school today. Are you -?"

Jessica, reclining on her bed with a magazine, picked up a piece of paper at her side and held it up. It read: "I'M FINE".

"Oh, right," said Charlene. "Good. You wanna tell me what happened yesterday?"

Jessica shook her head.

"Don't tell me you've lost your voice."

"Of course not. I just don't want to talk about it."

"I'm not surprised," Charlene said wryly. "Your dad told us all about Cameron and the incubus incident, and I gotta say I don't think much of your track record." She lowered her voice slightly. "One vampire and one half-incubus."

"Cambion."

"Huh?"

"That's what you call somebody who's half succubus or half incubus."

"Who told you that?"

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Britney Spears. Who do you think?"

"So what are you going to do now?" asked Charlene. "Are you going to give things a go with Cameron, or are you going to move on to a flesh eating zombie?"

Jessica scowled. "Fun-nee."

"Sorry."

"Cameron isn't anything like Will. He's alive, for one thing. He's quite a lot younger than two hundred and twenty five, and he doesn't want to kill me."

"Oh, well, what more could a girl want?" A sigh of frustration escaped her lips. This girl obviously needed keeping an eye on. "What are you telling me, Jess?"

Jessica pursed her lips, wondering how much to divulge. She had already had the talk with Cameron, very briefly, after Egon had finished talking to him at the firehouse and taken Alice to one side, and Peter happened to nip to the bathroom. Basically, she was more smitten than it was cool to admit and he admitted that he _liked her_ liked her. But they had a problem in that his mere presence seemed to send her to sleep. If they kissed, apparently it might even kill her (although they both suspected that Egon had said this chiefly to discourage any improper advances on his virtually surrogate niece).

Egon had promised to help Cameron with his demon half as much as he could, and hopefully send him on his way to a normal life and even normal relationships. "One day" was as specific as Egon had been and Jessica, impatient to go back into Cameron's house, intended to pester him about that the next time she saw him. In the meantime, they were going to pursue a relationship without ever touching or being alone together for more than a few minutes. It wouldn't be easy, but hey, being half demon never is.

"Well," said Jessica, "he's still going to be living across the street. I can hardly just ignore him."

"Does he know you're only thirteen?"

"God, what do you people think he's going to _do_ to me?" Jessica asked testily. "You don't need to worry. There's even a chance he might have some embarrassing personal problems that'll make him want to keep his fly well and truly zipped."

"What kind of personal problems?" Charlene couldn't help asking.

"Well, like maybe he'll have inherited his father's double-pronged penis."

Charlene winced. "I shouldn't have asked."

"And anyway he's never had a girlfriend before, and I've been kissed twice. Properly. That makes me more experienced than Cam is."

So Cameron was now Cam, was he? Yikes. Charlene didn't say any more. She just looked steadily at Jessica for several lingering seconds.

"What?" Jessica asked irritably.

"You will be careful, won't you?"

"Of course I will. I got a whole packet of condoms in my desk."

"Jessica!"

"Well." She disappeared behind her magazine again. "That's what you all seem to think of me."

Charlene sighed. "No one thinks that, Jessica."

"Huh."

"Oh come on. Talk about touchy."

"I am _not_ touchy." Jessica threw down her magazine and picked up the piece of paper on which she had summarised her general state of health. "Come on - pass me a pen and I'll teach you how to play the Orange Game. Janine taught it to me this morning - it's hilarious. First I need you to give me the names of five boys we know."

Preparing herself for the worst (it was already sounding pretty low brow), Charlene picked up a pen, sat down on the end of the bed and resigned to play the Orange Game.

THE END


End file.
